IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v66y2024ics154461232400713x.html

Judicial reforms and corporate governance: The contribution of circuit courts to ESG performance improvement

Author

Listed:
  • Xue, Yufei
  • He, Sheng

Abstract

This study uses empirical data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022 to examine the effects of circuit courts establishment on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of corporations. The findings show that circuit courts significantly enhance ESG performance, particularly in smaller private enterprises and in less-marketized regions. Analyst attention, earnings forecast divergence, and financing constraints could all moderate that influence circuit courts to varying extents. This research not only reveals a new perspective on the role of circuit courts in fostering sustainable corporate development but also provides empirical evidence to aid policymakers in using legal and institutional reforms to further enhance corporate ESG performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Xue, Yufei & He, Sheng, 2024. "Judicial reforms and corporate governance: The contribution of circuit courts to ESG performance improvement," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:66:y:2024:i:c:s154461232400713x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2024.105683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461232400713X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2024.105683?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lai, Shaojie & Yang, Laifeng & Wang, Qing & Anderson, Hamish D., 2023. "Judicial independence and corporate innovation: Evidence from the establishment of circuit courts," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Gunnar Friede & Timo Busch & Alexander Bassen, 2015. "ESG and financial performance: aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(4), pages 210-233, October.
    3. Costinot, Arnaud, 2009. "On the origins of comparative advantage," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 255-264, April.
    4. Broadstock, David C. & Chan, Kalok & Cheng, Louis T.W. & Wang, Xiaowei, 2021. "The role of ESG performance during times of financial crisis: Evidence from COVID-19 in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    5. Yuan, Huaxi & Zou, Longhui & Feng, Yidai, 2023. "How to achieve emission reduction without hindering economic growth? The role of judicial quality," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    6. Radhakrishnan Gopalan & Abhiroop Mukherjee & Manpreet Singh, 2016. "Do Debt Contract Enforcement Costs Affect Financing and Asset Structure?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(10), pages 2774-2813.
    7. He, Feng & Guo, Xinyao & Yue, Pengpeng, 2024. "Media coverage and corporate ESG performance: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Xin, Zhuoyao & Zhang, Zongyi & Xiang, Cheng, 2024. "Do suppliers value clients’ ESG profiles? Evidence from Chinese firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 241-258.
    9. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    10. Ting-Ting Li & Kai Wang & Toshiyuki Sueyoshi & Derek D. Wang, 2021. "ESG: Research Progress and Future Prospects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-28, October.
    11. Healy, Paul M. & Palepu, Krishna G., 2001. "Information asymmetry, corporate disclosure, and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 405-440, September.
    12. Daniel Berkowitz & Johannes Moenius & Katharina Pistor, 2006. "Trade, Law, and Product Complexity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 363-373, May.
    13. Huang, Xiaoqi & Liu, Wei & Zhang, Zhan & Zhao, Zhihui, 2022. "Intensive judicial oversight and corporate green innovations: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shao, Chunzi & Chen, Xiaoxin & Liu, Rui & Li, Jiaxin, 2025. "Legal unification, financial regulatory intensity, and the enhancement of economic performance in the Greater Bay Area," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Song, Jiangmei & Chang, Fei, 2025. "Does judicial independence improve corporate investment efficiency?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PE).
    3. Du, Houyang & Zhang, Yanfeng & Zhang, Weiran, 2025. "How does judicial improvement affect manufacturing firms' cross-regional development?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Minyu Zheng & Normaziah Mohd Nor & Zariyawati Mohd Ashhari, 2025. "Exacerbate or alleviate? Impact of economic policy uncertainty on excess cash holdings," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Zheng, Yaoqi, 2026. "Establishment of environmental protection courts, green finance, and corporate operating performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    6. Dong, Nanyan & Zhang, Jiang & Xu, Xiangbing & Ou, Peiyu, 2026. "Judicial Independence and corporate labor investment: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Abdulaziz Al Naim & Abdulrahman Alomair & Kaouther Chebbi, 2026. "The moderating effect of corporate governance reforms on the relationship between audit committee chair attributes and ESG disclosures," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(1), pages 1-21, December.
    8. Yue Meng & Xiaolei Yang, 2024. "Environmental Justice Specialization and Corporate ESG Performance: Evidence from China Environmental Protection Court," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-20, November.
    9. Jie Han & Runchang Liu & Yao Xu & Yaoyao Liu, 2025. "Can Registration System Reform Promote Corporate Sustainability? Evidence from China’s ESG Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-26, August.
    10. Tang, Shen & Qin, Chuan & Qi, Feng, 2025. "Circuit courts and capital market transparency: Evidence from analysts’ earnings forecasts," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fang, Xubing & Liu, Maotao, 2024. "Regional judicial capacity and corporate total factor productivity: Evidence from the establishment of circuit courts," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 465-489.
    2. Pruthiranjan Dwibedi & Debasis Pahi & Antarjyami Sahu, 2024. "Mapping the landscape of environmental, social and governance research: A bibliometric analysis," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 3745-3767, September.
    3. Mohamed Marie & Baolei Qi & Ali Meftah Gerged & Haitham Nobanee, 2024. "Exploring Environmental, Social and Governance research in the wake of COVID‐19: A bibliometric analysis of current trends and recommendations for future research," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(6), pages 6131-6149, November.
    4. Qin Lingda Tan & Sharizal Hashim & Zhangwei Zheng, 2025. "Environmental Social Governance (ESG) in Digitalization research: A bibliometric analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(1), pages 21582440241, January.
    5. Zhiwu Chen & Yan Chen & Yan Han & Meiting Lu & Yaowen Shan, 2026. "Justice’s financial footprint: Judicial independence and the cost of debt," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 51(1), pages 174-210, February.
    6. Cui, Huan-yu & Cao, Yue-qun, 2025. "Environmental justice, ethical transformation: Environmental courts and corporate ESG performance," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    7. Nuraini Desty Nurmasari & Adin Gustina & Muhammad Fuad & Yi-Chang Chen & Su Chuan Liu, 2026. "The Double-Edged Role of ESG: Cost in Stability, Resilience in Crisis in an Emerging Market Context," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 44-65.
    8. Sun, Yanyang & Gao, Jun & Wu, Wenruo & Liu, Suyi, 2025. "ESG performance and corporate fraud: Evidence based on the MOE framework," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    9. Tiantian Meng & Dan Lu & Danni Yu & M. H. Yahya & Mohd Ashhari Zariyawati, 2024. "Is executive compensation aligned with the company’s ESG objectives? Evidence from Chinese listed companies based on the PSM-DID approach," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    10. Qian, Kun & Shi, Bingjie & Song, Yunling & Wu, Hao, 2023. "ESG performance and loan contracting in an emerging market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Wang, Ren & Bian, Yuxiang & Xiong, Xiong, 2024. "Impact of ESG preferences on investments and emissions in a DSGE framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    12. Heying Liu & Chan Lyu, 2022. "Can ESG Ratings Stimulate Corporate Green Innovation? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-20, September.
    13. Raymond Kwong & Man Lung Jonathan Kwok & Helen S. M. Wong, 2023. "Green FinTech Innovation as a Future Research Direction: A Bibliometric Analysis on Green Finance and FinTech," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-27, October.
    14. Yu, Lianchao & Sha, Haobin & Liu, Qiang & Yan, Guowan, 2024. "Environmental judicial independence and corporate investment efficiency: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).
    15. Zhang, Cong & Yang, Jianhua, 2024. "Artificial intelligence and corporate ESG performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PC).
    16. Hao, Jing & Ren, Xingzi & Bi, Huining & Wu, Ji (George), 2025. "How does digital transformation predict the investment cycle in family enterprises?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    17. Huang, Chongle & Hao, Simin & Ma, Limei, 2025. "The impact of ESG advantages on the economic development of neighboring regions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    18. Massimiliano Cerciello & Francesco Busato & Simone Taddeo, 2023. "The effect of sustainable business practices on profitability. Accounting for strategic disclosure," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 802-819, March.
    19. Si, Haiping & Li, Chengyu & Miao, Miao & Li, Xueyao & Wang, Chao, 2025. "Every coin has two sides: Does bankruptcy judicial reform promote corporate innovation༟," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1699-1720.
    20. Song, Yunling & Wu, Hao & Ma, Yan, 2023. "Does ESG performance affect audit pricing? Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:66:y:2024:i:c:s154461232400713x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.