Environmental Regulation, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosure and Enterprise Green Innovation: Evidence from Listed Companies in China

The resource and environmental constraints on China's economic development have become more prominent; thus there is an urgent need for enterprises to achieve green innovation transformation to promote high-quality economic development. We obtained data on 655 on Chinese A-share companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2020, a total of 7205 samples, and explored the influencing mechanism of environmental regulation on corporate green innovation and the moderating mechanism of CSR disclosure by constructing a nonlinear fixed-effect regression model. The results showed: (1) the overall level of green innovation of listed companies is low, and the relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise green innovation presents the U-shaped characteristic of changing from cost effect to innovation compensation effect; (2) non-state-owned enterprises have less tolerance and more sensitive response to environmental regulation than state-owned enterprises; (3) social responsibility information disclosure has a positive regulatory effect on environmental regulation and enterprise green innovation, and non-state-owned enterprises are more significant. It provides references for the government to adjust the intensity of environmental regulation, and, meanwhile, for enterprises to improve the level of environmental protection and the CSR disclosure, and enhance the green innovation ability of enterprises in emerging market.