The impact of corporate environmental disclosure quality on financing constraints: the moderating role of internal control.

Abstract

It is still controversial whether environmental information disclosure (EID) can alleviate firms' financing constraints. Existing studies have not addressed the issue of whether internal control can address the financing constraint in the context of institutional weaknesses and managerial opportunism of environmental information disclosure quality (EIDQ). Therefore, through constructing multiple linear regression analysis, we empirically studied the impact of EIDQ on the financing constraint of Chinese firms and the moderating effect of internal controls on the above relationship. The findings showed that (1) improving EIDQ could significantly alleviate the financing constraint problem of enterprises, and the mitigation effect is more significant among non-state enterprises; (2) the quality of internal control helps to strengthen the mitigation effect of EIDQ on the financing constraint; and (3) further research found that the mitigation effect of EIDQ on financing constraints was more significant in a sample with a high degree of marketization, stricter government regulation, and non-political affiliation among non-state-owned enterprises. This study provides new ideas for promoting institutional optimization of EID and the development of green finance.