Associate Professor Yanan Wang, has published a collaborative paper titled "Doing good in times of need: Green finance policy and strategic corporate social responsibility"  in Economic Analysis and Policy.

Economic Analysis and Policy is an economics journal that focuses on policy-relevant research and practical applications in various fields of economics.

Abstract: This study investigates the effect of a green finance policy on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of firms in heavily polluting industries. Based on the 2017 policy of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), which incorporates green finance into its macroprudential assessment system, we employ the difference-in-differences method to show that firms in heavily polluting industries have significantly improved their CSR performance after the implementation of the PBC’s green finance policy. In response to the negative effect of the PBC’s policy on their financial position, affected firms strategically engage in CSR activities in the hope that appearing socially responsible will help them recover from their adverse position. Furthermore, firms in heavily polluting industries that enhance their CSR performance after the PBC’s policy have benefited from reduced bank credit transaction costs and have obtained more bank loans. The improvement in CSR performance is mainly concentrated in firms that are non-state-owned, small in size, highly dependent on external financing, and receiving more media attention. Overall, this study reveals a social consequence of the PBC’s green finance policy on the CSR performance.

Keywords: Green finance policy; Corporate social responsibility; External financing dependence; Media attention

Link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2024.10.008

Author profile

Yanan Wang is an associate professor at the School of Finance, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. She holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the School of Economics, Fudan University, and completed her doctoral program jointly with WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. Her main research areas include corporate finance, contract theory, and behavioral finance. Currently, she is the principal investigator of a youth project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and has participated in multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation and the National Social Science Fund. Her research has been published in leading domestic journals such as Economic Research and Journal of Financial Research, as well as in SSCI journals including Journal of Corporate Finance, China Economic Review, Energy Economics, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Economic Modelling, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, and Finance Research Letters.