Do employees’ voices matter? Unionization and corporate environmental responsibility

Xiandeng Jiang, Jin Yang, Wei Yang and Jian Zhang

International Review of Economics & Finance, 2021, vol. 76, issue C, 1265-1281

Abstract: This paper examines whether unionization influences firms’ investments in environmental protection, and finds a positive association between unionization and investment in environmental protection. Specifically, the positive association strengthens when firms (i) show higher levels of charitable donations; (ii) are located in regions receiving greater amounts of foreign direct investment; (iii) are located in regions in which political reliance is high; (iv) are located in regions with low antipollution investment. We alleviate endogeneity concerns by controlling for firm-fixed effects, using the propensity-score matching (PSM) method and the instrumental variable approach, and conducting a battery of robustness checks. The results of our additional analysis validate the finding that firms with unions tend to engage in environmental investment. In conclusion, we provide new evidence for the impact of unions on a given firm’s investment in environmental protection.

Keywords: Unionization; Corporate environmental investment; Employees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reveco:v:76:y:2021:i:c:p:1265-1281

DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2019.11.013

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