Industry-University-Research Collaboration and Corporate ESG Performance

This study focuses on A-share companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges over the period 2009 to 2024. Although Bloomberg's ESG records extend back to 2006, we begin the sample in 2009, the point at which ESG investing and ESG data coverage in China had matured enough to support firm-level analysis. China's first socially responsible public fund was launched in 2008, after which responsible investment drew growing attention from investors, and Bloomberg introduced its ESG Data Service in 2009, which broadened the systematic ESG coverage of listed firms. The patent data from which we identify IUR collaboration were obtained from the China National Intellectual Property Administration , while ESG performance data were obtained from the Bloomberg database. Additional financial data for listed companies were collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research and Wind databases. To ensure data quality, the following firms were excluded from the initial sample: (1) firms with missing data, (2) special treatment companies , and (3) firms in the financial and insurance industries. After applying these filters, the final sample consisted of 11,937 firm-year observations, of which approximately 14% involve IUR collaboration. The extended sample period and this share of IUR observations together provide a broad basis for examining how IUR collaboration relates to corporate ESG performance. To mitigate the influence of outliers, continuous variables were winsorized at the 1% upper and lower levels.本研究聚焦2009年至2022年在上交所与深交所上市的A股公司，选取该时间区间的原因在于中国自2009年起开始披露环境、社会及治理（Environmental, Social, Governance, ESG）评级及相关数据。产业-大学-科研机构（Industry-University-Research, IUR）合作数据源自国家知识产权局，ESG表现数据取自彭博（Bloomberg）数据库；上市公司补充财务数据则采集自国泰安（CSMAR）与万得（Wind）数据库。 为保障数据质量，初始样本剔除了以下三类企业：(1) 存在数据缺失的企业；(2) 被实施特别处理的上市公司；(3) 金融及保险行业企业。经上述筛选规则处理后，最终有效样本共计10035个公司-年度观测值。为缓解极端值对实证结果的干扰，对所有连续变量进行了上下1%分位的缩尾处理。