Table1_Impact of Green Innovation on Firm Value: Evidence From Listed Companies in China’s Heavy Pollution Industries.docx

The unspecified impact of green innovation on corporate financial performance has made some enterprises delay green innovation investment plans, and even abandon green innovation. Mitigating the economic concerns faced in the process of green innovation decision-making is of great significance to accelerate the process of enterprises’ green transformation. Using an unbalanced panel data of Chinese heavy pollution listed companies from 2008-2017, this paper investigates the impact of green innovation on firm value. We further test the likely channels through which green innovation can affect firm value, including the financial flexibility channel and analyst coverage channel. The study finds that: 1) increasing the proportion of green patent applications leads to the devaluation of firm value, but this devaluation effect only occurs in the short term; 2) both financial flexibility and analyst coverage partially mediate the impact of green innovation on firm value; 3) heterogeneity analysis indicates that enterprises can reduce the negative impact of green innovation on firm value by increasing the executive equity incentive and the management-employee pay gap. In addition, as economic policy uncertainty increases from low to high, the negative impact becomes smaller. Our research helps to broaden the cognitive boundaries of the economic impact of green innovation, and assists policymakers and researchers to better grasp the characteristics of green innovation behavior of enterprises in emerging economies. Finally, we provide useful enlightenments for policymakers and business managers to stimulate green innovation in enterprises.

绿色创新对企业财务绩效的不确定影响，导致部分企业推迟绿色创新投资计划，甚至放弃绿色创新。缓解绿色创新决策过程中所面临的经济担忧，对于加速企业绿色转型进程具有重要意义。本文采用2008-2017年中国重污染上市公司的不平衡面板数据，探究了绿色创新对企业价值的影响。进一步检验了绿色创新可能影响企业价值的潜在途径，包括财务灵活性渠道和分析师覆盖渠道。研究发现：1）增加绿色专利申请比例会导致企业价值贬值，但这种贬值效应仅发生在短期内；2）财务灵活性和分析师覆盖部分中介了绿色创新对企业价值的影响；3）异质性分析表明，企业可以通过提高高管股权激励和管理层与员工的薪酬差距，来降低绿色创新对企业价值的负面影响。此外，随着经济政策不确定性从低到高增加，负面影响逐渐减小。本研究有助于拓展对绿色创新经济影响的认知边界，并协助政策制定者和研究人员更好地把握新兴经济体企业绿色创新行为的特点。最终，我们为政策制定者和企业管理者提供了刺激企业绿色创新的有益启示。