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Conflicting ESG Ratings and SA-Based Financing Constraints: A Study of Chinese Listed Firms
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DOI：10.3390/su18168268.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
ESG ratings are widely used in sustainable finance, yet disagreement among agencies may weaken their information role and relate to firms’ financing frictions. Using Chinese A-share non-financial listed firms from 2009 to 2024, this study examines whether ESG rating divergence is associated with an SA-based financing-constraint proxy, whether stock turnover provides a liquidity-related pathway, and whether digital transformation weakens the association. ESG rating divergence is measured by the dispersion of available rescaled ESG ratings from five agencies, and financing constraints are proxied by the absolute value of the SA index. Firm and year fixed-effects regressions show that greater ESG rating divergence is significantly associated with higher values of the SA-based proxy. The result remains positive and significant in a lagged-variable specification. Instrumental-variable estimates provide additional sensitivity evidence, although the exclusion restriction cannot be directly verified. The bootstrap results support a statistically significant but economically small partial mediation effect through stock turnover; however, lagged mediation checks do not establish a complete temporal sequence. A moderation analysis indicates that digital transformation weakens the positive association. The subsample estimates are reported as descriptive patterns. The findings suggest that inconsistent ESG signals are associated with an SA-based financing-constraint proxy, while internal information-governance capabilities may reduce this exposure.
Keywords:
ESG rating divergence
financing constraints
stock turnover
digital transformation
information uncertainty
China
Journal
IF:
3.3
Papers:
10.5W
Citations:
28.4W
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Cited Papers