Guo Zhiru, Lu Chao
China Center for Energy Economics Research, School of Economics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Dec 28;18(1):150. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18010150.
This article selects the listed companies in China's A-share heavy pollution industry from 2014 to 2018 as samples, uses a random effect model to empirically test the relationship between media attention and corporate environmental performance and examines the impacts of local government environmental protection and property nature on that relationship. Results are as follow: (1) Media attention can significantly affect a company's environmental performance. The higher the media attention, the greater the company's supervision and the better its environmental performance. (2) In areas where the government pays less attention to environmental protection, the impact of media on corporate environmental performance is more obvious, but in other areas, the impact of media on environmental performance cannot be reflected; (3) The media attention is very significant for the environmental performance improvement of state-owned enterprises, and it is not obvious in non-state-owned enterprises. (4) A further breakdown of the study found that the role of media attention in corporate environmental performance is only significant in the sample of local governments that have low environmental protection and are state-owned enterprises. This research incorporates the local government's emphasis on environmental protection into the research field of vision, expands the research scope of media and corporate environmental performance, and also provides new clues and evidence for promoting the active fulfillment of environmental protection responsibilities by companies and local governments.
本文选取2014年至2018年中国A股重污染行业的上市公司作为样本，运用随机效应模型实证检验媒体关注与企业环境绩效之间的关系，并考察地方政府环境保护和产权性质对该关系的影响。研究结果如下：（1）媒体关注能够显著影响企业的环境绩效。媒体关注度越高，对企业的监督力度越大，其环境绩效也越好。（2）在政府对环境保护关注度较低的地区，媒体对企业环境绩效的影响更为明显，但在其他地区，媒体对环境绩效的影响无法体现；（3）媒体关注对国有企业环境绩效的提升作用十分显著，而在非国有企业中并不明显。（4）进一步细分研究发现，媒体关注在企业环境绩效中的作用仅在环境保护力度较低且为国有企业的地方政府样本中显著。本研究将地方政府对环境保护的重视纳入研究视野，拓展了媒体与企业环境绩效的研究范围，也为推动企业和地方政府积极履行环境保护责任提供了新的线索和证据。
