Outgoing Audits of Natural Resource Assets, Environmental Regulation and Environmental Investment in Heavily Polluting Enterprises

Based on the event of outgoing audits of natural resource assets pilot, this paper selects the data of listed A-share companies from 2011-2018 to empirically test the environmental governance effect of outgoing audits of natural resource assets at the level of heavily polluting enterprises. The study finds that outgoing audits of natural resource assets significantly increase the environmental protection investment of heavily polluting firms in the jurisdiction of pilot cities. It is further found that jurisdictions with stronger environmental regulations weaken the positive effect of outgoing audits of natural resource assets on environmental investments of heavily polluting firms relative to jurisdictions with weaker environmental regulations. The above findings remain robust to parallel trend tests and the inclusion of macro control variables. The findings of the article test the governance effect of outgoing audits of natural resource assets, but the strength of environmental regulation can weaken this effect. This study provides empirical evidence for the environmental governance effect of outgoing audits of natural resource assets.