External Pressures, Top Executives’ Characteristics and Environmental Information Disclosure: Empirical Evidence from Listed Companies of Heavy Pollution Industry

Based on stakeholder theory, this paper takes China’s listed companies of heavy pollution industry from 2011 to 2014 as the research objects, and studies the working mechanism of external pressures and top executives’ characteristics on level of environmental information disclosure (EDI). The results show that external pressures from government regulation and public opinion supervision significantly improve EDI; Top executives’ compensation affects EDI most, followed by top executives’ political connections; Top executives’ shareholding is slightly positively correlated with EDI; Enterprises with political connections receive more government regulation and public opinion supervision than those without; Top executives’ political connections weaken the effect of government regulation on EDI.