Heterogeneity-robust DID.

The impact of environmental governance on firm productivity has been widely discussed, but few studies have examined the function of environmental judicature. Using the establishment of environmental courts as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the relationship between environmental judicature and firm productivity. Our findings show that environmental courts will reduce firm productivity in the short term, chiefly owing to the increased environmental violation costs, environmental reputation costs and environmental compliance costs. The conclusion remains robust after mitigation of heterogeneous treatment effects, PSM-DID estimation, placebo tests and IV estimation. This negative effect is more pronounced for firms located in regions with high legal scores and low government intervention, for firms located in the eastern region, for firms with weak market power, and for firms with high pollution intensity. In addition, our further analysis suggests that environmental courts would improve the long-term firm productivity and regional green productivity, indicating that strengthening environmental judicature are conducive to firms’ sustainable growth and regions’ green transformation in the long run.环境治理对企业生产率的影响已得到广泛探讨，但鲜有相关研究关注环境司法的作用。本文以环境法院的设立为准自然实验(quasi-natural experiment)，考察了环境司法与企业生产率之间的关联。研究结果表明，环境法院在短期内会降低企业生产率，其主要原因在于环境违规成本、环境声誉成本与环境合规成本的上升。在开展异质性处理效应分析、倾向得分匹配-双重差分法(Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Differences, PSM-DID)估计、安慰剂检验以及工具变量(Instrumental Variable, IV)估计等稳健性检验后，本文结论依然保持稳健。该负向效应在法治水平较高、政府干预程度较低地区的企业，东部地区企业，市场势力较弱的企业以及污染强度较高的企业中更为显著。此外，进一步研究表明，环境法院可提升企业长期生产率与区域绿色生产率，表明从长期来看，强化环境司法有助于企业的可持续增长与区域的绿色转型。