The role of short selling threat in corporate environmental disclosure strategies: Evidence from China

Abstract

Using staggered deregulation of short sales constraints in the Chinese capital market, this study investigates how short selling threat related to corporate environmental disclosure strategies. Our study finds that pilot firms experience a larger increase in hard disclosures, and a larger decrease in soft disclosures after short selling deregulation. Specifically, the increase in hard disclosure is found primarily at good environmental performers, whereas the decrease in soft disclosure is primarily found at poor environmental performers. Further analysis shows that the increase in hard disclosure and the decrease in soft disclosure is significantly more pronounced at firms that are covered by small number of media and analysts, with low institutional ownership and stock liquidity. Overall, our findings suggest that firms might change the type of environmental disclosure to mitigate their exposures to short selling threat, and provide evidence of the disciplining effect of short sales on environmental disclosures.