原文链接：

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43979-022-00008-6#Sec16

Abstract

In recent years, with the increasing attention paid to climate risks, the changes in climate policies are also more full of uncertainties, which have brought tremendous impact to economic entities, including companies. Using the dynamic threshold model, this study investigates the nonlinear and the asymmetric effect of climate policy uncertainty on Chinese firm investment decisions with panel data of 128 Chinese energy-related companies from 2007 to 2019. The empirical findings indicate that the influence of climate policy uncertainty on firm investment is significantly nonlinear. Overall, climate policy uncertainty is not apparently related to corporate investments in the high-level range, while it negatively affects the investments in the low-level range. In addition, to be more specific, the negative impact of climate policy uncertainty on the mining industry is tremendous, while the influence on the production and supply of electricity, heat, gas, and water sector is remarkably positive. The results of this study could help the company managers and policymakers to arrange appropriate related strategies under different climate policy conditions.

Conclusions

In recent years, climate change has become a hot topic globally. Influenced by international organizations or major policymakers and concerned about the national living environment, China has gradually adopted low-carbon cities, carbon markets and other measures to cope with the deterioration of climate conditions in recent years. At the end of 2020, the “carbon peak, carbon neutrality” initiative was put forward, and more detailed regulations were issued to ensure the successful realization of low-carbon transformation. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for the energy industry. This paper explores the relationship between climate policy uncertainty and the investment of two types of energy companies.

We initially understood the negative relationship between climate policy uncertainty and corporate investment through the ordinary panel model with balanced panel data of 128 Chinese listed energy-related companies from 2007 to 2019. Then, through the dynamic threshold model, we further dig out the nonlinear and asymmetric influence between them. For the mining industry, uncertainty about climate policy could significantly reduce corporate investment. For the electricity, heat, gas and water production industries, stronger fluctuations in climate policy could instead boost corporate investment. In addition, we have demonstrated the overall impact of economic growth on corporate investment in the energy industry.

The threshold for the industry I to change its response to climate policy uncertainty is lower than industry II, which indicates that industry I is in fact more sensitive to climate policy changes. It is noteworthy that the effects of climate policy uncertainty do differ significantly between the two different sub-industries. But the same is true, when climate policy uncertainty is in a low-level range, i.e. below the threshold, the impact on corporate investment in these industries is greater, regardless of whether the relationship is positive or negative. The results of this study could help the company managers and policymakers to select appropriate investment decision that maximizes firm value under different climate policy conditions.

This paper still has some limitations in the analysis, which can be improved in future research. The first limitation is the sample period of this study, which starts in 2007 and ends with the latest issued financial statements of the 2019 fiscal year. With a larger sample size, the results could be more robust and efficient. Due to the lack of data, the second limitation is that this study only controls some company characteristics, including leverage, Tobin’s Q, company size growth rate, sales growth rate, without the corporate governance’s factors, such as the ownership and the characters of the woman on boards. Finally, we could investigate the influence channels between climate policy uncertainty and corporate investment.