ESG报告可读性与ESG评级分歧  

ESG Report Readability and the Divergence of ESG Ratings

作　　者：赵婧潞 林子昂 张超敏 Zhao Jinglu;Lin Ziang;Zhang Chaomin

机构地区：[1]中国人民大学商学院,北京100872 [2]清华大学经济管理学院,北京100084

出　　处：《证券市场导报》2024年第12期68-77,共10页Securities Market Herald

基　　金：中国博士后基金面上项目“‘EM-EM’情境下中国企业海外市场机会构建研究:关键要素、驱动机制与内在机理”(2023M743856)。

摘　　要：随着可持续发展理念的普及,ESG评级已成为投资者决策的重要参考。然而,目前评级机构对同一家公司的ESG评级差异较大,ESG评级的有效性相对欠缺。本文以2018—2022年A股上市公司的社会责任报告为研究样本,实证检验ESG报告可读性对ESG评级分歧的影响,并从信息提取难度、情绪干扰、信号理论三个角度分析影响机制。研究发现,企业ESG报告的文本复杂度越高,即可读性越差,ESG评级分歧越大。异质性分析结果支持了对潜在影响机制的推测,在内部控制质量高的企业中,以及当ESG报告文本较短、未经过第三方鉴证时,ESG报告可读性加剧ESG评级分歧的效应更显著。本研究为规范非财务信息披露制度、增强ESG评级的有效性提供了参考。With the growing adoption of sustainable development concepts,the ESG rating has become an important reference for investors’decision-making.However,there are significant divergences in ESG ratings assigned by different rating agencies to the same company,resulting in inadequate effectiveness of ESG ratings.Using the ESG reports of A-share listed companies from 2018 to 2022 as the research sample,this paper empirically examines the impact of ESG report readability on the divergence of ESG ratings and explores the underlying mechanisms from three perspectives,including the difficulty of information extraction,emotional interference,and signaling theory.The study finds that the greater the textual complexity of a firm’s ESG report(i.e.,the poorer its readability),the greater the divergence of ESG ratings.The heterogeneity analysis supports the hypothesized mechanisms that the effect of ESG report readability on amplifying the divergence of ESG ratings is more pronounced for firms with higher internal control quality and when the ESG report length is shorter and lacks verification by third parties.This paper provides implications for standardizing non-financial information disclosure regulations and enhancing the effectiveness of ESG ratings.

关 键 词：ESG评级分歧 ESG报告 文本可读性 非财务信息 信息披露 

分 类 号：C93[经济管理—管理学] F231