Abstract:

This paper takes the launch of "TV political inquiry" programs as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the data of listed companies on the A–share market from 2009 to 2022 to examine the impact of public participation on corporate ESG performance and its mechanism. The study finds that public participation significantly improves corporate ESG performance. Mechanism analysis shows that public participation affects corporate ESG performance by enhancing government supervised ability and increasing social external attention. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the use of live broadcasting forms and the establishment of evaluation mechanisms in the programs can effectively enhance the promoting effect of public participation on corporate ESG performance. Further analysis reveals that regardless of the level of a company's own ESG performance, public participation has a stable policy promotion effect. At the same time, public participation also inhibits corporate ESG "green-washing".

Key words:

public participation, TV political inquiry, ESG, ESG "green-washing"

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