IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v79y2025ics1544612325006087.html

Corporate green transition and financial risk: Evidence from China's micro-enterprises

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Fenfen
  • Zhang, Yu
  • Luo, Qingfeng
  • Wang, Can

Abstract

Amid growing resource and environmental challenges, corporate green transition (CGT) is crucial. Using micro-level firm data, this study examines the impact of CGT on corporate financial risk while analyzing its underlying mechanisms. Various robustness tests show that CGT significantly lowers financial risk. Mechanism analysis reveals that CGT lowers financial risk by reducing energy consumption intensity, enhancing environmental governance performance, and fostering green technological innovation. Heterogeneity studies show that CGT's effects on financial risk vary by region, industry, and property rights. This study provides empirical evidence for corporate risk management and green development.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Fenfen & Zhang, Yu & Luo, Qingfeng & Wang, Can, 2025. "Corporate green transition and financial risk: Evidence from China's micro-enterprises," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:79:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325006087
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.107347
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325006087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.107347?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. Brower, Jacob & Rowe, Katie, 2017. "Where the eyes go, the body follows?: Understanding the impact of strategic orientation on corporate social performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 134-142.
    2. Tykvová, Tereza & Borell, Mariela, 2012. "Do private equity owners increase risk of financial distress and bankruptcy?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 138-150.
    3. Feng Cui & Chuanfeng Han & Pihui Liu & Minmin Teng, 2022. "Green Credit of China’s Coal Power Enterprises during Green Transformation: A Tripartite Evolutionary Game Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-20, August.
    4. Yan Li & Shenglu Zhou & Zhenyi Jia & Liang Ge & Liping Mei & Xueyan Sui & Xiaorui Wang & Baojie Li & Junxiao Wang & Shaohua Wu, 2018. "Influence of Industrialization and Environmental Protection on Environmental Pollution: A Case Study of Taihu Lake, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-12, November.
    5. Li, Shengquan & Bai, Tao, 2024. "The impact of tax reform on corporate green transformation — Evidence based on the value-added tax retained rebate," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    6. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    7. Jun Xie & Wataru Nozawa & Michiyuki Yagi & Hidemichi Fujii & Shunsuke Managi, 2019. "Do environmental, social, and governance activities improve corporate financial performance?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 286-300, February.
    8. Zhang, Dongyang & Kong, Qunxi, 2022. "Green energy transition and sustainable development of energy firms: An assessment of renewable energy policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    9. Deng, Xin & Kang, Jun-koo & Low, Buen Sin, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder value maximization: Evidence from mergers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 87-109.
    10. Zmijewski, Me, 1984. "Methodological Issues Related To The Estimation Of Financial Distress Prediction Models," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22, pages 59-82.
    11. Shi, Ruoying & Zhou, Hengyi & Li, Xiangqian & Miao, Xue'er & Zhao, Xing, 2024. "Green finance, investor preferences, and corporate green innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. Chaiyapa, Warathida & Esteban, Miguel & Kameyama, Yasuko, 2018. "Why go green? Discourse analysis of motivations for Thailand's oil and gas companies to invest in renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 448-459.
    13. Ching-Hsun Chang, 2011. "The Influence of Corporate Environmental Ethics on Competitive Advantage: The Mediation Role of Green Innovation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 361-370, December.
    14. Oh-Suk Yang & Jae-Hoon Han, 2023. "Assessing the Effect of Corporate ESG Management on Corporate Financial & Market Performance and Export," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-30, January.
    15. Lu, Yuchen & Gao, Yuqiang & Zhang, Yu & Wang, Junrong, 2022. "Can the green finance policy force the green transformation of high-polluting enterprises? A quasi-natural experiment based on “Green Credit Guidelines”," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    16. Sang Kim & Zhichuan (Frank) Li, 2021. "Understanding the Impact of ESG Practices in Corporate Finance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15, March.
    17. Ng, Anthony C. & Rezaee, Zabihollah, 2020. "Business sustainability factors and stock price informativeness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(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. Han, Yinjie & Guo, Shujuan, 2025. "The synergistic effect between green technology innovation and corporate accounting information quality," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PD).
    2. Yang, Rui & Jin, Xianglu & Huang, Wenhui & Wang, Sike, 2025. "Evolutionary game analysis of the driving mechanism for green technology innovation in enterprises: a new quality productive forces perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PD).

    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. Boubaker, Sabri & Cellier, Alexis & Manita, Riadh & Saeed, Asif, 2020. "Does corporate social responsibility reduce financial distress risk?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 835-851.
    2. Campa, Domenico & Camacho-Miñano, María-del-Mar, 2015. "The impact of SME’s pre-bankruptcy financial distress on earnings management tools," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 222-234.
    3. Ahsan Habib & Mabel D' Costa & Hedy Jiaying Huang & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan & Li Sun, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of financial distress: review of the empirical literature," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1023-1075, April.
    4. Megginson, William L. & Meles, Antonio & Sampagnaro, Gabriele & Verdoliva, Vincenzo, 2019. "Financial distress risk in initial public offerings: How much do venture capitalists matter?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 10-30.
    5. Tarsisius Renald Suganda & Jungmu Kim, 2023. "An Empirical Study on the Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Default Risk: Evidence in Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-20, February.
    6. Bravo-Urquiza, Francisco & Moreno-Ureba, Elena, 2021. "Does compliance with corporate governance codes help to mitigate financial distress?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    7. Sumaira Ashraf & Elisabete G. S. Félix & Zélia Serrasqueiro, 2019. "Do Traditional Financial Distress Prediction Models Predict the Early Warning Signs of Financial Distress?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, April.
    8. Tang, Ying & Wang, Biliang & Moro, Andrea & Chen, Jinyu & Sheehan, Maura, 2025. "Trade credit financing, social trust, and financial distress: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Choi, Daewoung & Gam, Yong Kyu & Kang, Min Jung & Shin, Hojong, 2025. "The effect of ESG-motivated turnover on firm financial risk," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(4).
    10. Aitzaz Ahsan Alias Sarang & Asad Ali Rind & Riadh Manita & Asif Saeed, 2025. "Does a co‐opted director affect a firm's financial distress risk?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 1275-1301, April.
    11. Meles, Antonio & Salerno, Dario & Sampagnaro, Gabriele & Fu, Mengchuan, 2021. "The going-public decision and firm risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    12. Kerstin Lopatta & Mario Albert Gloger & Reemda Jaeschke, 2017. "Can Language Predict Bankruptcy? The Explanatory Power of Tone in 10‐K Filings," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), pages 315-343, December.
    13. Marcel Seefloth & Florian Siedler & Christoph Kayser & Benedikt T. Retsch & Henning Zülch, 2025. "Sustainability Performance and Its Impact on Financial Distress Risk—Evidence From STOXX Europe 600," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5), pages 5699-5741, July.
    14. Ye, Dezhu & Ji, Wenjun & Sun, Nan, 2025. "Corporate diversification strategies and bankruptcy risk: A re-examination based on COVID-19," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    15. Li, Chunyu & Lou, Chenxin & Luo, Dan & Xing, Kai, 2021. "Chinese corporate distress prediction using LASSO: The role of earnings management," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Harlan Platt & Marjorie Platt, 2002. "Predicting corporate financial distress: Reflections on choice-based sample bias," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 184-199, June.
    17. Richardson, Grant & Taylor, Grantley & Lanis, Roman, 2015. "The impact of financial distress on corporate tax avoidance spanning the global financial crisis: Evidence from Australia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 44-53.
    18. Jianzhuang Zheng & Muhammad Usman Khurram & Lifeng Chen, 2022. "Can Green Innovation Affect ESG Ratings and Financial Performance? Evidence from Chinese GEM Listed Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-32, July.
    19. Łukasz Postek & Michał Thor, 2020. "Modele predykcji bankructwa i ich zastosowanie dla rynku NewConnect," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 1, pages 109-137.
    20. Meles, Antonio & Salerno, Dario & Sampagnaro, Gabriele & Verdoliva, Vincenzo & Zhang, Jianing, 2023. "The influence of green innovation on default risk: Evidence from Europe," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 692-710.

    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:79:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325006087. 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.