ESG disclosure quality and cost of debt

This study reveals a negative correlation between the quality of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) disclosure and the cost of debt financing among Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2020. Furthermore, this relationship is only significant for non-SOE firms, firms in areas with higher marketization level, firms with lower accounting transparency, firms voluntarily publishing social responsibility reports, or firms operating in non-high-pollution industries. These results are robust to a series of tests including two-stage regressions based on instrumental variable and alternative measures of disclosure quality based on textual analyses.