暨南大学经济学院何凌云教授和其中国农业大学博士生张洪振的文章“企业慈善会导致更多的污染排放吗：理论与证据”（Does firm’s philanthropy lead to more emissions: theory and evidence）近日被Emerald出版社出版的《China Agricultural Economic Review》接受。

企业和个人慈善事业是承担社会责任的重要标志，在紧急救助、精准扶贫、乡村振兴、维护社会稳定和公平等方面发挥着重要作用. 然而，出乎意料的是，制造业、矿业等污染严重的企业正在成为社会慈善的主导力量。2018年，我国现金捐助1007.83亿元。制造业企业捐赠数量最多，占比27.01%，矿业也占比4.42%，总体排名第五。企业慈善与污染排放之间是否存在内在联系？如果存在，企业慈善是企业真诚履行社会责任的公益行为，还是为了排污而刻意的虚伪表现？

通过构建由企业家和政府的三阶段博弈理论模型，我们发现在慈善事业上投资更多的公司会排放更多的污染。企业可以通过慈善事业减轻外部监管压力，通过减少减排投资和生产过剩来实现更多的平衡排放。在理论分析的基础上，我们利用CSMA和中国环境统计数据库匹配的上市公司数据集，对理论模型的相关结论进行了实证检验。结果表明，企业慈善通过减少减排投资，增加产量，带来更多的污染排放。几项稳健性测试证实了我们的发现。最后，异质性检验表明，与国有企业相比，非国有企业的慈善行为对更多污染排放的意图更为明显。而且，区域环境规制的完善可以显著抑制企业慈善公益动机的实现。我们的研究结果表明，除了掩盖环境不端行为，直接追求更多的污染权也是企业慈善事业的重要动因。上述结果阐明了企业逃避政府环境监管的重要途径，对加强企业环境监管和污染防治具有重要的政策意义。

本文的创新点主要体现在以下方面。首先，本文通过研究慈善捐赠对企业污染排放的影响，扩展了企业慈善动机的文献。以往对企业慈善行为不良动机的研究。我们发现逃避政府环境监管和增加污染权也是企业慈善的重要不良动机。其次，通过构建企业慈善、政府监管、企业污染排放的理论模型，首次从理论上阐述了企业慈善的动机和决策机制，弥补了理论不足，揭示了企业慈善与污染排放的影响机制，进一步拓宽了慈善与污染排放的研究边界。最后，本文首次基于企业实际污染排放数据研究慈善行为对企业污染排放影响。由于真正的动机嵌入在企业决策过程中，因此无法直接衡量和评估。与企业环境罚款金额（杜，2015）和环保投入（高等，2012）相比，直接排放数据包含了更多有效信息，更能代表其真实动机。

Does firm’s philanthropy lead to more missions: theory and evidence

He, Ling-Yun  Zhang, Hong-Zhen

Abstract

Purpose–Inspired by the comparison of charity donations among candidates in rural elections, the authors linked the non-profit motives of charity to corporate pollution emissions. And on this basis, the authors aim to provide theoretical and empirical explanations for the relationship between corporate philanthropy and pollution. The authors find that the desire to pursue more pollution emissions stimulates the firm’s philanthropy, which is similar to the public welfare donations in rural elections.

Design/methodology/approach–Firstly, the authors construct a game-theoretical framework consisting of an entrepreneur and a bureaucrat to study the environmental cost of corporate philanthropy through the impact on pollution emission by the firm. Secondly, the authors used various empirical methods, including hybrid OLS, IV-2SLS, PSM, etc., to empirically test the impact of a firm’s philanthropy on corporate pollution emissions. Finally, the authors use the output and abatement input as intermediary variables and apply the intermediary effect model to test the impact mechanism between corporate philanthropy and corporate pollution emissions.

Findings – Theoretical model finds that the firm invests more in philanthropy discharges more emissions when the theoretical model is in political equilibrium. Besides, empirical results show that corporate philanthropy will lead to more pollution emissions by reducing abatement input and increasing production. Finally, the heterogeneity test finds that compared with state-owned enterprises, the intention of non-stateowned enterprises’ philanthropy for more pollution emission is more obvious. Moreover, the improvement of regional environmental regulation can significantly inhibit the realization of corporate philanthropy’s poor motive.

Practical implications–The results have obvious policy implications for China’s future policy-making. Firstly, regulatory agencies should pay close attention to the charitable behaviors of firms with serious negative environmental externalities, and prevent them from replacing more pollution emissions with philanthropy. Besides, due to weak environmental supervision in rural areas, rural polluting enterprises will be more inclined to make charitable donations to the village collective to obtain more emission rights. Therefore, the government should strengthen environmental supervision in rural areas to prevent enterprises from wanton pollution.

Originality/value –By constructing a game-theoretical framework consisting of an entrepreneur and a bureaucrat, the authors expound on corporate philanthropy’s pollution motivation and decision-making mechanism for the first time in theory. Besides, this paper finds that the desire to pursue more pollution emissions also stimulates the firm’s philanthropy. This paper expands the literature on corporate charitable donation motivations.

Keywords: Corporate philanthropy, Polluting emission, Political connections, Influence mechanism