Deregulation as a catalyst: Market access reforms and corporate ESG in China

IF 14.2 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Energy Economics Pub Date : 2025-08-28 DOI:10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108863

Guanglai Zhang , Yuwen Li , Ning Zhang , Hao Zeng

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Market access deregulation, as an external governance mechanism shaping corporate behavior, plays a crucial role in fostering corporate sustainability and social responsibility. Leveraging China's Negative List System for Market Access reform as a quasi-natural experiment, this study empirically examines how easing market access restrictions affects firms' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Using textual analysis and machine learning techniques on a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022, we find that deregulation significantly enhances ESG performance by mitigating financing constraints, fostering competitive market dynamics, and increasing investments in environmental protection. The effect is more pronounced among mature firms, companies facing intense market competition, and those operating in regions with lower local protectionism. Furthermore, the policy-induced ESG improvements translate into higher firm value and lower corporate risk. Our findings highlight the broader economic implications of regulatory reform for sustainable corporate development.

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放松管制作为催化剂：中国市场准入改革与企业ESG

放宽市场准入作为塑造企业行为的外部治理机制，在促进企业可持续发展和社会责任方面发挥着至关重要的作用。本研究以中国市场准入负面清单制度改革为准自然实验，实证考察放宽市场准入限制对企业环境、社会和治理绩效的影响。通过对2010年至2022年中国a股上市公司样本的文本分析和机器学习技术，我们发现放松管制通过缓解融资约束、促进竞争市场动态和增加环境保护投资显著提高了ESG绩效。这种影响在成熟企业、面临激烈市场竞争的企业以及在地方保护主义程度较低的地区经营的企业中更为明显。此外，政策导向的ESG改善转化为更高的企业价值和更低的企业风险。我们的研究结果强调了监管改革对企业可持续发展的更广泛的经济影响。

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来源期刊

Energy Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

18.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

524

期刊介绍： Energy Economics is a field journal that focuses on energy economics and energy finance. It covers various themes including the exploitation, conversion, and use of energy, markets for energy commodities and derivatives, regulation and taxation, forecasting, environment and climate, international trade, development, and monetary policy. The journal welcomes contributions that utilize diverse methods such as experiments, surveys, econometrics, decomposition, simulation models, equilibrium models, optimization models, and analytical models. It publishes a combination of papers employing different methods to explore a wide range of topics. The journal's replication policy encourages the submission of replication studies, wherein researchers reproduce and extend the key results of original studies while explaining any differences. Energy Economics is indexed and abstracted in several databases including Environmental Abstracts, Fuel and Energy Abstracts, Social Sciences Citation Index, GEOBASE, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Journal of Economic Literature, INSPEC, and more.