The Impact of Corporate ESG Performance on Regional Employment Quality
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Abstract
Against the background of the deepening global concept of sustainable development and the steady advancement of China’s dual-carbon goals, corporate ESG performance has become an important criterion for evaluating comprehensive corporate value and long-term development capacity. From a regional macro perspective, this paper uses A-share listed companies and provincial employment panel data from 2012 to 2023 to examine the mechanism and regional differences through which corporate ESG performance affects regional employment quality. A two-way fixed-effects model and mediation-effect tests are used for empirical analysis. The results show that overall corporate ESG performance significantly promotes regional employment quality, and this conclusion remains valid after robustness tests and endogeneity treatment. Further mediation tests indicate that technological innovation, resource agglomeration, and the easing of financing constraints are three major mechanisms through which ESG improves regional employment quality by generating high-skilled jobs, promoting factor concentration, and securing employment supply. In addition, the effect of overall corporate ESG performance on regional employment quality shows clear regional heterogeneity: the employment-quality improvement effect is more pronounced in eastern regions with higher marketization, but relatively weaker in central and western regions. The conclusions provide a reference for governments and enterprises to realize a win-win outcome between economic benefits and social value through ESG practices and offer implications for advancing the employment-priority strategy.
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