Digital trade and firm ESG performance: The perspective of finance development

IF 6.3 2区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Research in International Business and Finance Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI:10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.102894

Qin Zhu, Xiangxiang Zhou

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Abstract

ESG serves as an important avenue for global green and sustainable economic development, but the driving factors that affect the ESG performance of enterprises need to be further explored. This paper examines 257 cities in China to measure urban digital trade (DT) from the perspective of digital finance. Furthermore, it explores the role and influence mechanism of urban DT on corporate ESG performance, based on data from 1303 China A share-listed companies. The results show that DT significantly improves corporate ESG performance by boosting green technology innovation and enterprise yields and cutting agent costs, respectively. Moreover, this promoting role is more pronounced in cities with higher levels of digital finance, non-resource dependency, and advanced regional coordinated development. The higher the quality of a city's innovation environment, the stronger the role of DT in corporate ESG performance. Robustness tests, such as the dual machine learning method, validate these conclusions. This study integrates the perspective of the development of digital finance, and provides support basis and policy inspiration for the ESG performance of enterprises empowered by digital trade.

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数字贸易与企业ESG绩效：金融发展的视角

ESG是全球经济绿色可持续发展的重要途径，但影响企业ESG绩效的驱动因素有待进一步探讨。本文以中国257个城市为研究对象，从数字金融视角对城市数字贸易进行测度。基于1303家中国A股上市公司的数据，探讨城市DT对企业ESG绩效的作用及影响机制。结果表明，DT分别通过促进绿色技术创新和企业收益、降低代理成本显著提高企业ESG绩效。在数字金融水平高、资源依赖度低、区域协调发展水平高的城市，这种促进作用更为明显。城市创新环境质量越高，创新能力对企业ESG绩效的影响作用越强。鲁棒性测试，如双机器学习方法，验证了这些结论。本研究整合了数字金融发展的视角，为数字贸易赋能下的企业ESG绩效提升提供支持依据和政策启示。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Research in International Business and Finance BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

11.20

自引率

9.20%

发文量

240

期刊介绍： Research in International Business and Finance (RIBAF) seeks to consolidate its position as a premier scholarly vehicle of academic finance. The Journal publishes high quality, insightful, well-written papers that explore current and new issues in international finance. Papers that foster dialogue, innovation, and intellectual risk-taking in financial studies; as well as shed light on the interaction between finance and broader societal concerns are particularly appreciated. The Journal welcomes submissions that seek to expand the boundaries of academic finance and otherwise challenge the discipline. Papers studying finance using a variety of methodologies; as well as interdisciplinary studies will be considered for publication. Papers that examine topical issues using extensive international data sets are welcome. Single-country studies can also be considered for publication provided that they develop novel methodological and theoretical approaches or fall within the Journal''s priority themes. It is especially important that single-country studies communicate to the reader why the particular chosen country is especially relevant to the issue being investigated. [...] The scope of topics that are most interesting to RIBAF readers include the following: -Financial markets and institutions -Financial practices and sustainability -The impact of national culture on finance -The impact of formal and informal institutions on finance -Privatizations, public financing, and nonprofit issues in finance -Interdisciplinary financial studies -Finance and international development -International financial crises and regulation -Financialization studies -International financial integration and architecture -Behavioral aspects in finance -Consumer finance -Methodologies and conceptualization issues related to finance