历经三十余年发展，中国资本市场逐步走向成熟，证监会为加强对中国资本市场的监管，把完善与修订非财务信息的披露政策作为重要举措。基于此可以对上市公司环境信息与权益资本成本的关系进行研究。 本文首先梳理了国内外关于环境信息与权益资本成本的研究成果，形成本文的理论依据。在此基础上，通过国泰安数据库获取2009-2020年沪深两市的A股上市公司的环境信息披露数据作为研究样本，并基于一系列具体环境信息项目是否得到披露或项目是否达标，形成一个完整的整合指标体系构造关于上市公司环境信息披露的变量，系统检验上市公司环境信息披露对权益资本成本的影响。为了解决内生性问题，本文通过倾向匹配得分以及熵平衡等方法进行稳健性检验。在得出上市公司环境信息披露对权益资本成本呈现逆向影响的实证结果的基础上，本文进而根据上市公司环境硬信息和软信息的披露及其不同维度环境信息披露等因素的影响，基于实证研究来对权益资本成本受上市公司环境信息披露所造成的影响进行分析。本文通过对此进行研究，得出：（1）上市公司环境信息披露可以使代理成本降低，还可以对信息不对称的情况进行有效的处理，避免权益资本成本过高；（2）上市公司可以通过对信息不对称进行有效的处理，使权益资本成本获得显著的下降，环境硬信息披露对此具有极为关键的作用；（3）权益资本成本主要受到可靠性、环境绩效指标、治理结构和管理系统、现阶段环境的状况的影响。 本论文的研究结果将上市公司环境信息披露的经济后果延伸到权益资本成本领域，弥补了这一方面研究的不足，并试图从上市公司环境信息价值这一创新角度拓展权益资本成本的影响因素。且本文将环境信息披露对权益资本影响的研究对象拓展至全体上市公司。本文对于环境信息披露的实证结果，为证监会修订和完善环境信息披露政策和出台其他监管举措提供理论依据。其次，本文在当前注重环保的时代，为上市公司的环境披露与环境管理提出科学管理的发展方向。最后，本文提出加强资本市场参与者对环境披露等非财务信息的关注程度的政策建议，对于维护相关投资人的利益和推动资本市场的有序发展具有积极意义。
After more than thirty years of development, China’s capital market has gradually matured. In order to strengthen the supervision of China’s capital market, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has made it an important initiative to improve and revise the disclosure policy of non-financial information. In view of this, an in-depth study on the relationship between environmental information and equity capital cost of listed companies can be made. In this paper, first of all, the research results on environmental information and the cost of equity capital in domestic and foreign are reviewed to form the theoretical basis of this paper. On this basis, the environmental information disclosure data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2009 to 2020 are obtained through the CSAMR as the research samples, then based on whether a series of specific environmental information items have been disclosed or whether the items meet the standards, so as to construct variables about environmental information disclosure of listed companies, systematically test the impact of environmental information disclosure of listed companies on the cost of equity capital. In order to address the endogeneity issue, this paper conducts robustness tests by means of Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Entropy Balance Test. On the basis of the negative effect of environmental information disclosure on the cost of equity capital, the effect of environmental information disclosure on the cost of equity capital is further investigated empirically by combining with factors, such as the hard and soft environmental information disclosure of listed companies and the environmental information disclosure in different dimensions. This paper finds that: (1) Environmental information disclosure of listed companies can alleviate information asymmetry, reduce agency costs, and then reduce the cost of equity capital; (2) Hard environmental information disclosure of listed companies has a more significant effect on alleviating information asymmetry, and reducing the cost of equity capital; (3) Disclosure carrier, environmental management, environmental cost, environmental performance and environmental governance of environmental information disclosure of listed companies are the main factors affecting the cost of capital. The research results of this paper extend the economic consequences of environmental information to the field of the cost of equity capital, make up for the deficiency of this research, and try to expand the influencing factors of the cost of equity capital from the innovative perspective of environmental information value, so as to provide empirical evidence for a better understanding of equity capital cost behavior. And this paper extends the research object of the impact of environmental information disclosure on equity capital to all listed companies. The empirical results of environmental information disclosure provide a theoretical basis for the China Securities Regulatory Commission to revise and improve environmental information disclosure policies and introduce other regulatory measures. Moreover, as nowadays environmental protection arose more and more attention, this paper puts forward the development direction of scientific management for the environmental disclosure and environmental management of listed companies. Finally, this paper puts forward the suggestions to enhance the attention of capital market participants to environmental information disclosure and other non-financial information disclosure, which is of positive significance to protect the interests of investors and promote the orderly development of capital market.
