ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
This article is part of the Research TopicNavigating Socioeconomic Complexities in the Global Energy TransitionView all 4 articles
How does the green Insurance Policy Affect the Performance of Heavy-Polluting Enterprises: An Empirical Study Based on Chinese Listed Companies
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jilin University of Finance and Economics, Changchun, China
- 2Jilin Agriculture University, Changchun, China
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This study takes the implementation of the "Guiding Opinions on Launching Pilot Programs for Mandatory green Insurance" in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the panel data of A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2023, it systematically examines the impact of the green insurance policy on the performance of heavy-polluting enterprises by using the difference-in-differences (DID) method. The research findings show that the green insurance policy significantly improves the performance level of heavy-polluting enterprises. Mechanism tests indicate that the green insurance promotes the improvement of corporate performance through two paths: incentivizing enterprises' technological innovation and enhancing their short-term debt financing capacity. Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that the policy has a more prominent role in improving the performance of enterprises with lower environmental investment levels, non-state-owned nature, and less financing constraints. The test of moderating effects finds that the board size negatively moderates the promoting effect of the green insurance on corporate performance, while the proportion of independent directors exerts a positive moderating effect. This study provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for the optimal design of the green insurance policy and the green and low-carbon transformation of heavy-polluting enterprises, and has important implications for improving the green insurance system and serving the high-quality development of the economy.
Keywords: Green insurance, Heavy-polluting enterprises, Corporate performance, Difference-in-differences method, technological innovation, investment and financing capacity
Received: 30 Oct 2025; Accepted: 26 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xin-guang, Shi-zheng, Wenyu, Yu-dong and Nan-nan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Cao Nan-nan
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