External Pressure, Corporate Governance, and Voluntary Carbon Disclosure: Evidence from China

Pinglin He, Huayu Shen, Ying Zhang and Jing Ren
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Pinglin He: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Huayu Shen: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Ying Zhang: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Jing Ren: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-20

Abstract: This paper uses manually collected data of carbon information disclosure for listed companies, from 2009 to 2015 in China, to measure corporate carbon information disclosure, and it explores the impact of external pressure and internal governance on carbon information disclosure through text analysis and a hierarchy analysis process. The results show that, firstly, the greater the external pressure is, the higher the level of carbon information disclosure will be; that is, when listed companies are state-owned enterprises or in heavy pollution industries, the level of carbon information disclosure is higher. Secondly, the higher the level of corporate governance is, the higher the level of carbon information disclosure will be; that is, when the board of directors is larger, the proportion of independent directors is higher, and the chairman and general manager positions are differentiated, the level of carbon information disclosure is higher. Furthermore, when listed companies are state-owned and in heavy pollution industries, the level of carbon information disclosure is higher; when the chairman and general manager are in the same position (lower governance level), the positive impact of government pressure on carbon disclosure is less significant, the positive impact of external pressure on carbon disclosure is less significant, and the positive interactive impact of government pressure and external pressure on carbon disclosure is less significant. The conclusions of this paper are still robust after Heckman two-stage regression, propensity score matching (PSM) analysis, sub-sample regression, and double clustering analysis.

Keywords: carbon information disclosure; analytic hierarchy process; internal governance; external pressure; state-owned enterprises; heavy polluting industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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