IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pacfin/v93y2025ics0927538x25001611.html

Extreme high temperatures and corporate green innovation: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Meng
  • Zhang, Jing
  • Leng, Tiecheng

Abstract

Global warming's extreme high temperatures pose a significant threat to socio-economic development. Drawing on data from China's A-share listed companies from 2002 to 2021, this study explores the impact of extreme high temperatures on corporate green innovation. The results show that extreme high temperatures significantly increase green innovation by driving up labor and electricity costs, intensifying financing constraints, and reducing investment levels—thus mitigating adverse effects on production and operations. This effect is more pronounced in non-SOEs, heavily polluting industries, firms led by executives with overseas experience or environmental backgrounds, firms receiving substantial government R&D subsidies, and those subject to strict environmental supervision. Additionally, green innovation enhances firm value, with stronger positive effects under higher levels of extreme high temperatures. Overall, this study provides novel micro-level evidence on how external factors influence corporate green innovation, offering valuable insights for managing climate risk and promoting China's transition to a green, low-carbon economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Meng & Zhang, Jing & Leng, Tiecheng, 2025. "Extreme high temperatures and corporate green innovation: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s0927538x25001611
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2025.102824
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X25001611
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.pacfin.2025.102824?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. Karlsson, Martin & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2018. "Population health effects and health-related costs of extreme temperatures: Comprehensive evidence from Germany," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 93-117.
    2. Shenggang Ren & Yue Wang & Yucai Hu & Ji Yan, 2021. "CEO hometown identity and firm green innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 756-774, February.
    3. Kent Walker & Na Ni & Weidong Huo, 2014. "Is the Red Dragon Green? An Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Environmental Proactivity in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 27-43, November.
    4. Yu, Chin-Hsien & Wu, Xiuqin & Zhang, Dayong & Chen, Shi & Zhao, Jinsong, 2021. "Demand for green finance: Resolving financing constraints on green innovation in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Marshall Burke & Solomon M. Hsiang & Edward Miguel, 2015. "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production," Nature, Nature, vol. 527(7577), pages 235-239, November.
    6. Lily H. Fang & Josh Lerner & Chaopeng Wu, 2017. "Intellectual Property Rights Protection, Ownership, and Innovation: Evidence from China," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(7), pages 2446-2477.
    7. Dayuan Li & Min Huang & Shenggang Ren & Xiaohong Chen & Lutao Ning, 2018. "Environmental Legitimacy, Green Innovation, and Corporate Carbon Disclosure: Evidence from CDP China 100," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(4), pages 1089-1104, July.
    8. Zhang, Peng & Deschenes, Olivier & Meng, Kyle & Zhang, Junjie, 2018. "Temperature effects on productivity and factor reallocation: Evidence from a half million chinese manufacturing plants," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-17.
    9. Sihai Li & Xianzhong Song & Huiying Wu, 2015. "Political Connection, Ownership Structure, and Corporate Philanthropy in China: A Strategic-Political Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 399-411, June.
    10. Hu, Haiqing & Wei, Wei & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2022. "Examining the impact of extreme temperature on green innovation in China: Evidence from city-level data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Kim, Incheol & Pantzalis, Christos & Zhang, Zhengyi, 2021. "Multinationality and the value of green innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2014. "Temperature and the Allocation of Time: Implications for Climate Change," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 1-26.
    13. Chen, Xia & Fu, Qiang & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2021. "What are the shocks of climate change on clean energy investment: A diversified exploration," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    14. Cepni, Oguzhan & Şensoy, Ahmet & Yılmaz, Muhammed Hasan, 2024. "Climate change exposure and cost of equity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    15. Xiaofeng Quan & Yun Ke & Yuting Qian & Yao Zhang, 2023. "CEO Foreign Experience and Green Innovation: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(2), pages 535-557, January.
    16. Ma, Yechi & Sha, Yezhou & Wang, Zilong & Zhang, Wenjing, 2023. "The effect of the policy mix of green credit and government subsidy on environmental innovation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    17. Bai, Dongbei & Du, Lizhao & Xu, Yang & Abbas, Shujaat, 2023. "Climate policy uncertainty and corporate green innovation: Evidence from Chinese A-share listed industrial corporations," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    18. E. Somanathan & Rohini Somanathan & Anant Sudarshan & Meenu Tewari, 2021. "The Impact of Temperature on Productivity and Labor Supply: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(6), pages 1797-1827.
    19. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1777-1804 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Wen, Huwei & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Zhou, Fengxiu, 2022. "How does fiscal policy uncertainty affect corporate innovation investment? Evidence from China's new energy industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    21. Wen, Huwei & Zhong, Qiming & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2022. "Digitalization, competition strategy and corporate innovation: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing listed companies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    22. Su, Ruixin & Shui, Xiaolong & Zhang, Minhao & Li, Si, 2024. "Too hot to be innovative: Examining the relationship between high temperatures and corporate green innovation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    23. Chen, Shuai & Chen, Xiaoguang & Xu, Jintao, 2016. "Impacts of climate change on agriculture: Evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 105-124.
    24. Henry He Huang & Joseph Kerstein & Chong Wang, 2018. "The impact of climate risk on firm performance and financing choices: An international comparison," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(5), pages 633-656, July.
    25. Fabrizi, Andrea & Guarini, Giulio & Meliciani, Valentina, 2018. "Green patents, regulatory policies and research network policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1018-1031.
    26. Nora Pankratz & Rob Bauer & Jeroen Derwall, 2023. "Climate Change, Firm Performance, and Investor Surprises," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(12), pages 7352-7398, December.
    27. Shenggang Ren & Donghua Liu & Ji Yan, 2024. "How Officials’ Political Incentives Influence Corporate Green Innovation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 194(3), pages 633-653, October.
    28. Julian Atanassov & Brandon Julio & Tiecheng Leng, 2024. "The Bright Side of Political Uncertainty: The Case of R&D," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(10), pages 2937-2970.
    29. Jeremy Galbreath, 2019. "Drivers of Green Innovations: The Impact of Export Intensity, Women Leaders, and Absorptive Capacity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 47-61, August.
    30. Hoogendoorn, Brigitte & van der Zwan, Peter & Thurik, Roy, 2020. "Goal heterogeneity at start-up: are greener start-ups more innovative?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(10).
    31. Henry He Huang & Joseph Kerstein & Chong Wang & Feng (Harry) Wu, 2022. "Firm climate risk, risk management, and bank loan financing," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(13), pages 2849-2880, December.
    32. Addoum, Jawad M. & Ng, David T. & Ortiz-Bobea, Ariel, 2023. "Temperature shocks and industry earnings news," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 1-45.
    33. Jovanović, Saša & Savić, Slobodan & Bojić, Milorad & Djordjević, Zorica & Nikolić, Danijela, 2015. "The impact of the mean daily air temperature change on electricity consumption," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 604-609.
    34. Zhang, Jing & Li, Meng, 2024. "Compromise or struggle: Extreme temperatures and environmental corporate social responsibility in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1872-1894.
    35. Ren, Xiaohang & Zhang, Xiao & Yan, Cheng & Gozgor, Giray, 2022. "Climate policy uncertainty and firm-level total factor productivity: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    36. Xu, Le & Fan, Meiting & Yang, Lili & Shao, Shuai, 2021. "Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    37. Zhao, Shikuan & Abbassi, Wajih & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Zhang, Han, 2024. "How do government R&D subsidies affect corporate green innovation choices? Perspectives from strategic and substantive innovation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 1378-1396.
    38. Burke, Marshall & Hsiang, Solomon M & Miguel, Edward, 2015. "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3g72r0zv, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    39. Deschenes, Olivier, 2014. "Temperature, human health, and adaptation: A review of the empirical literature," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 606-619.
    40. Ang, B.W. & Wang, H. & Ma, Xiaojing, 2017. "Climatic influence on electricity consumption: The case of Singapore and Hong Kong," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 534-543.
    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. Ye, Jingjing & Huang, Feng & Tang, Wenye & Zhao, Lulu, 2025. "Culture and household carbon emissions: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 94(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. Zhang, Jing & Li, Meng, 2024. "Compromise or struggle: Extreme temperatures and environmental corporate social responsibility in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1872-1894.
    2. Liu, Xinheng & Lv, Shumei & Yang, Xin & Cao, Jie & Huang, Chuangxia, 2025. "Extreme temperature shocks and firms’ financial distress," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Jiao, Anqi & Sun, Ran & Ren, Honglin, 2025. "Navigating climate policy: Corporate lobbying strategies in response to intensified climate risk exposure," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    4. Cascarano, Michele & Natoli, Filippo & Petrella, Andrea, 2025. "Entry, exit, and market structure in a changing climate," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    5. Aguilar-Gomez, Sandra & Gutierrez, Emilio & Heres, David & Jaume, David & Tobal, Martin, 2024. "Thermal stress and financial distress: Extreme temperatures and firms’ loan defaults in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    6. Jiaxin Wang & Jingyi Zhuang & Chao Yan & Kam C. Chan, 2025. "Standing Up or Standing By: Abnormally Hot Temperatures and Corporate Environmental Engagement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 196(1), pages 93-127, January.
    7. Yuping Song & Lu Lu & Jingxuan Liu & Jingyi Zhou & Xin Wang & Fangfang Li, 2025. "A Study of the Factors Contributing to the Impact of Climate Risks on Corporate Performance in China’s Energy Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-26, June.
    8. Hao, Xinya & Huang, Yongying & Zhang, Lin, 2025. "High temperature, power rationing, and firm performance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    9. Valenti, Giulia & Vona, Francesco, 2024. "Hot Wages: How Do Heat Waves Change the Earnings Distribution?," FEEM Working Papers 348848, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    10. Huang, Kaixing & Zhao, Hong & Huang, Jikun & Wang, Jinxia & Findlay, Christopher, 2020. "The impact of climate change on the labor allocation: Empirical evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    11. Bortolan, Leonardo & Dey, Atreya & Taschini, Luca, 2024. "Volatile temperatures and their effects on equity returns and firm performance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 128521, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Chen, Fanglin & Zhang, Jie & Chen, Zhongfei, 2024. "Assessment of the effects of extreme temperature on economic activity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    13. Li, Wanli & Luo, Dan & Cheng, Teng-Yuan, 2025. "Strategy choices in strategic risk-taking: Does climate risk matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    14. He, Feng & Ren, Xingzi & Wang, Yueren & Lei, Xingfan, 2025. "Climate risk and corporate bond credit spreads," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    15. Li, Wanli & Chen, Junrui & Yuan, Kaibin, 2025. "Changes in corporate employment under climate risk," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    16. Valerio Intraligi & Marco Biagetti, 2026. "Occupational Heat Stress and Employment Dynamics in Italy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 89(2), pages 1-31, February.
    17. Hoang, Khanh & Pham, Linh & Ha, Oanh Kieu & Nghiem, Hoa Xuan, 2025. "Firm-level climate change exposure and firm efficiency," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    18. Yuan, Zhengrong & Ding, Hai & Yu, Qiuzuo, 2024. "High temperature, bargaining power and within-firm wage inequality: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    19. Tarsia, Romano, 2024. "Heterogeneous effects of weather shocks on firm economic performance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124251, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Dai, Zhifeng & Zhu, Haoyang, 2024. "Climate policy uncertainty and urban green total factor productivity: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).

    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:pacfin:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s0927538x25001611. 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/pacfin .

    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.