The Effect of Environmental Regulation on Corporate Environmental Governance Behavior and Its Mechanisms

Di Zhu, Chang Liu, Yong Dong and Junguo Hua
Additional contact information
Di Zhu: School of Economics and Management, Henan Agricultural University, Ping An Avenue 218, Zhengzhou 450000, China
Chang Liu: School of Economics and Management, Henan Agricultural University, Ping An Avenue 218, Zhengzhou 450000, China
Yong Dong: School of Economics and Management, Henan Agricultural University, Ping An Avenue 218, Zhengzhou 450000, China
Junguo Hua: School of Economics and Management, Henan Agricultural University, Ping An Avenue 218, Zhengzhou 450000, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Environmental regulation is an institutional guarantee for achieving green and sustainable economic development, and the implementation effect of environmental regulation policies is a concern for all sectors of society. This paper empirically examines the impact of environmental regulation on firms’ environmental governance behavior using a double difference model with the help of a quasi-natural experiment, the new Environmental Protection Law, and analyzes the mediating effect of central environmental protection inspectors using data from listed companies in China from 2011 to 2020. It was found that environmental regulation significantly enhances firms’ motivation to participate in environmental governance and central environmental protection inspectors play a mediating role in the impact of environmental regulation on firms’ environmental governance behavior. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis shows that the enhancement effect of environmental regulation on firms’ environmental governance behavior mainly exists in large-scale firms and nonstate enterprises.

Keywords: environmental regulation; corporate environmental governance behavior; environmental supervision; difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9050/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9050/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:15:p:9050-:d:870078

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().