Does digital finance promote corporate social responsibility of pollution-intensive industry? Evidence from Chinese listed companies

It is crucial to achieve sustainable development using digital finance to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility. In this paper, we study the impact of digital finance on corporate social responsibility performance of pollution-intensive industry. From the perspective of theoretical mechanism, digital finance could influence corporate social responsibility performance through financing effect. Then, we use the data of Chinese listed companies and the Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China (PKU_DFIIC) to empirically test the influence of digital finance on corporate social responsibility of pollution-intensive industry. The results show that digital finance is positively related to the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility of pollution-intensive industry. The mechanism test shows that by reducing the information asymmetry in the financial market and making them easier for enterprises to access the financial market, digital finance effectively alleviates the financing constraints of enterprises and then enables enterprises to invest more capital in corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, we find that there are heterogeneous influences of digital finance on the corporate social responsibility performance of different types of enterprises. Specially, enterprises with small scale, located in high informatization and marketization areas and eastern regions of China, and enterprises with high ownership concentration will enjoy more positive impact. By using different indicators to measure digital finance and changing samples for robustness checks, the research conclusions of the paper are still valid. Therefore, government should make more effort to support the development of digital finance, so as to promote corporate social responsibility of pollution-intensive industry and the green and sustainable development of the economy.