Is Corporate Environmental Responsibility More Valuable in the Shaky Period? The Moderating Effect of Ownership Type

Local protectionism is a severe problem in Chinese environmental governance that offers enterprises various levels of protection from environmental regulations according to different ownership types. Therefore, we examine the effectiveness of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) engagement on firm value with emphasis on the moderating role of ownership type. The study period is split into a period with a steady institutional background (2006-2015) and a shaky period of environmental reforms (2016-2019) to capture the difference in legal circumstances. We find that, first, the impact of CER on firm value changed significantly from negative to positive over the two periods. Second, ownership type played a moderating role that influenced CER effectiveness on firm value. Third, given the environmental reforms, CER effectiveness for state-owned enterprises af- filiated with the central government increased the most while that for private enterprises increased the least.