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Corporate environmental protection investment is crucial for reducing pollution levels and controlling harmful substance emissions. We examine the relationship between corporate environmental protection investment and debt financing costs, utilizing a sample of A-share listed companies in China from 2011 to 2020. We find that debt financing costs are negatively related to corporate environmental protection investment. Green technology innovation and ESG performance are the main channels. Environmental regulations, air quality, and green finance impact the interplay between corporate environmental protection investment and debt financing costs. Moreover, our heterogeneity analysis underscores that enterprises facing looser financing constraints and low levels of pollution are more likely to mitigate debt financing costs by investing in environmental protection. The conclusion provides policy implications for guiding enterprises to consider environmental investment as a long-term strategy and provides a theoretical foundation for the government to enhance its guiding role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creditors, such as banks, often use disclosed environmental information to assess a company' s environmental risk and ensure the safety of debt funds. Consequently, carbon disclosures have become an important consideration for creditors when making investments. This study explores the relationship between carbon disclosure and debt financing costs using data on listed companies from 2008 to 2019. The results show that carbon disclosure can reduce the debt financing costs of enterprises, and that this influence is more significant for private companies than for state-owned enterprises. Instrumental variables and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) were used to evaluate the robustness of negative relationships. Furthermore, carbon disclosure has a more significant impact on debt costs with less environmental supervision pressure, weak residents' environmental awareness, and weak product market competition. These findings provide guidance for companies' carbon information disclosure and support the establishment of official carbon disclosure standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the system theory and Pareto efficiency theory, this paper, based on the data of listed companies in China's A-share manufacturing industry in 2011–2022, explores the impact of market-driven green finance and government-guided green finance on the carbon emission intensity of manufacturing enterprises, and analyzes the intermediary role of debt financing cost. A negative "U" relationship exists in market-driven green finance/government-guided green finance and the carbon emission intensity of manufacturing enterprises. Further research shows that under the higher debt financing cost, market-driven green finance played a weaker carbon reduction effect. The heterogeneity analysis found that market-driven green finance can have a significant non-linear impact of "promoting growth first and weakening later" on the carbon emissions of energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises, large enterprises, and enterprises with high human capital levels. Government-guided green finance has a significant non-linear impact on non-energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises and small enterprises. This paper provides the theoretical basis and practical inspiration for the government to formulate relevant low-carbon development policies and promote the innovation of green financial tools in the financial market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article investigates whether a deleveraging policy influences the risk of corporate debt default. We provide evidence that the deleveraging policy can increase the risk of corporate debt default by reducing the supply of credit funds and increasing the cost of debt financing, and the conclusions remain robust after controlling for endogeneity problems. Furthermore, we find that the impact of the deleveraging policy on corporate debt default risk is more significant for enterprises with poor operating performance, nonstate-ownership, backward capacity, and developed shadow banking areas. Those findings provide a theoretical basis for the macrodecision transition from deleveraging to stabilizing leverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important provision in a company's charter, the requirement of staggered board elections can help management protect themselves or protect the interests of investors. We examined a unique dataset of Chinese listed firms from the period of 2004–2014, and our findings are twofold. First, we find that the establishment of a staggered board in a company's article of association increases the equity financing costs as well as the debt financing costs. This result is in line with management defense hypothesis that staggered boards are an overprotection for the management. Second, our results show that a cumulative voting system plays an effective role in reducing the impact of a staggered board on a firm's financing costs. This moderating impact is higher for the debt financing costs and lower for the equity financing costs. The result shows that "debt investors" value a cumulative voting system because of its control of the corporate operations and board activities, while "equity investors" believe staggered board elections have a larger influence on the corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the Chinese Government issued a policy to require enterprises to disclose environmental information. Using the environmental disclosure information of 204 Chinese listed companies in 20 polluting sectors over the period of 2011–2015, we find that managers tend to withhold environmental information and selectively disguise sensitive environmental information in the face of financial pressure, and where the disclosure of sensitive environmental information would significantly increase the cost of debt financing. Furthermore, agency conflicts and information asymmetry between managers and outside investors promote the managers' tendencies to withhold environmental information when facing financial pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Digital finance can reduce the cost of corporate debt financing. • Digital finance's impact on corporate debt's cost is regionally heterogeneous. • The impact of digital finance on the cost of corporate debt is industry heterogeneous. This paper selects the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2022 as the research object to explore the impact of digital finance on the cost of corporate debt financing. It is found that the development of digital finance can significantly reduce the cost of corporate debt financing; the impact of digital finance on the cost of corporate debt financing has regional heterogeneity, and the impact of digital finance on the cost of corporate debt financing has industry heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Controlling shareholders' equity pledging behavior will increase the cost of debt financing. • Controlling shareholders' equity pledge behavior enhances the firm's control transfer risk and pushes up the cost of debt financing. • Equity pledges lead to the separation of the two rights of controlling shareholders and increase the cost of debt financing. • Equity pledges lead listed companies to adopt earnings management and increase the cost of debt financing. This paper selects the relevant data of listed companies from 2015 to 2021 to study the relationship and influence mechanism between equity pledge behavior and debt financing cost of listed companies. It is found that controlling shareholders' equity pledge behavior affects the debt financing cost of listed companies, which makes the financing cost of listed companies increase; equity pledge mainly affects the debt financing cost through the two paths of control transfer risk and information disclosure quality, which makes the debt financing cost increase, and the profit appropriation motive does not constitute the path of equity pledge affecting the debt financing cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The cost of debt financing is positively related to the risk of stock price crash risk. • The higher the risk of stock price crash risk, the higher the probability of firm default. • The higher the firm's information transparency, the weaker the positive effect. This paper takes corporate bonds issued by Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2021 as a sample to study the relationship and the mechanism of the relationship between stock price crash risk and debt financing cost. It is found that an increase in the risk of stock price crash will significantly increase the credit spread and issue size of corporate bond issuance; an increase in the risk of stock price crash does not have a significant effect on the expected probability of default and Z-value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the economic consequences of tax avoidance, this paper tries to explore the impact of a company’s tax avoidance, especially the correlation between tax avoidance and overinvestment, based on the conditions of the companies listed on the Shanghai & Shenzhen Stock Exchanges (A-share companies). Our study reveals that a higher level of tax avoidance is associated with higher investment-cash flow sensitivity as well as a tendency to overinvest. This finding may be useful to enterprises when they choose their tax avoidance activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, bank credit business is booming with the increasing borrowing intention of China's listed companies, and debt financing has become the major approach among listed companies' financing strategies. As a series of institutional arrangements about rights, responsibilities and benefits between different shareholders, corporate governance mechanism has a significant influence on the cost of debt financing. This paper employs variable coefficient panel data model to investigate the relationship of the listed company's debt financing costs and corporate governance mechanism in terms of structural characteristics and time series characteristics. The results show that optimizing the structure of both Board of Directors and Board of Supervisors, establishing a reasonable management incentive system and reducing the concentration of ownership properly can directly contribute to a lower company's debt financing costs. Meanwhile, property rights have an interactive influence on corporate governance from four aspects, which indirectly effect in company's debt financing costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing the intensification of global carbon emissions and the increasingly severe pressure of environmental pollution, listed companies urgently need to promote green innovation, achieve green transformation, and alleviate environmental problems. Green finance policy has played a significant role as a financial strategy for environmental governance in affecting green innovation level over the years. In this context, taking the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone (GFRIPZ) implemented in 2017 in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper analyzes the impact of green finance policy on green innovation level of listed companies by the difference-in-difference model. Based on the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020, the results of empirical analysis show that green finance significantly promotes green innovation of listed companies. The effect is profound on green utility model patents, but less pronounced on green invention patents. Among all these pilot zones, the policy effects of GFRIPZ ranked in descending order are Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guizhou, and Xinjiang. In addition, green finance has a more significant impact on heavy-polluting industries, large and state-owned enterprises, and listed companies located in the eastern region. Furthermore, the effects of industry heterogeneity ranked in descending order are energy, manufacturing, processing, and engineering industry, while it is not obvious in the service industry. Mechanism analysis suggests that the effect is driven by a reduction in the cost of debt financing and an increase in the long-term debt ratio. The findings provide implications for policymakers to promote the level of green innovation and environmental governance. Therefore, policymakers should support the long-term creative development of green invention patents by reducing the cost of debt financing and increasing the long-term debt ratio and consider the heterogeneous characteristics of listed companies when formulating green finance policies.

Drawing on risk mitigation theory, this article examines whether the improvement of firms' social performance reduces debt financing costs (CDFs) in China, the world's largest emerging market. Employing both the ordinary least square (OLS) and the two-stage instrumental variable regression methods, we find that improved corporate social responsibility (CSR) reduces the CDF when firms' CSR investment is lower than an optimal level; however, this relationship is reversed after the CSR investment exceeds the optimal level. Firms with extremely low or extremely high CSR are subject to a higher CDF. The results also suggest that the optimal CSR level for small firms is higher than that for large firms. This study is the first to document a U-shaped relationship between CSR and CDF and also the first to investigate this relationship within an emerging market context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies focus on the impact of green innovation on enterprises, but few studies pay attention to the difference made by the impact of green innovation at the different stages of a firm's life cycle. This study used Chinese A-share listed companies as a sample to conduct research and found that green innovation has a positive effect on a firm's value. However, compared with firms at a mature stage of their life cycle, the impact of green innovation on firm value is more significant in firms at the stages of growth and decline. Further research shows that green innovation can increase the value of firms at the growth stage by improving their sustainable development capability and reducing debt financing costs. However, for firms at the decline stage of their life cycle, green innovation can only increase firm value by reducing debt financing costs. In addition, the nature of property rights and the level of corporate governance will have a moderating effect on the relationship between green innovation and firm value. This research will not only enrich the previous literature but also guide the allocation of resources for firms at different stages of their life cycle to carry out green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a firm's exposure to air pollution-related risk has become an important factor that creditors cannot ignore in the procedure of lending decision making with the aggravation of air pollution, empirical evidence on whether and how air pollution affects the cost of debt has been relatively scarce. Employing a series of Chinese listed firms from the main board of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges covering 2014 to 2018, our research responds to this research gap by exploring how air pollution-induced environmental violation risk affects the cost of debt by constructing an assessment system of firms' environmental violation risk. The results shed light on an issue that firms exposed to higher concentrations of air pollution may suffer a higher environmental violation risk, resulting in a higher debt cost. In addition, a further analysis shows that environmental regulatory pressure and heavily polluting firms enhance the influence of air pollution on the cost of debt, while state-owned firms and firms' economic contributions weaken the influence of air pollution on the cost of debt. Our research is conducive to highlighting not only the importance of environmental governance for mitigating the cost of debt to the firms exposed to air pollution, but also its importance to creditors exposed to their clients' environmental violation risk and default risk.