{"title":"Political connections and bias in ESG news","authors":"Pengfei Chu , Xiaojuan Hou , Guanxia Xie","doi":"10.1016/j.asieco.2025.101877","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study analyzes how political connections influence Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) sentiment scores. Using ESG news data from Chinese publicly listed companies, we show that companies with political connections have significantly higher sentiment scores for ESG news than others. However, the effect arises primarily because they leverage the political power derived from these connections to interfere with media coverage rather than due to superior actual ESG performance. The effect is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, older firms, companies with highly educated executives, and male-dominated firms. We also find that the impact of political power on ESG news is not limited to local areas but extends to other cities, while anti-corruption campaigns significantly mitigate this effect.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47583,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Asian Economics","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101877"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Asian Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049007825000016","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/8 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study analyzes how political connections influence Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) sentiment scores. Using ESG news data from Chinese publicly listed companies, we show that companies with political connections have significantly higher sentiment scores for ESG news than others. However, the effect arises primarily because they leverage the political power derived from these connections to interfere with media coverage rather than due to superior actual ESG performance. The effect is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, older firms, companies with highly educated executives, and male-dominated firms. We also find that the impact of political power on ESG news is not limited to local areas but extends to other cities, while anti-corruption campaigns significantly mitigate this effect.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Asian Economics provides a forum for publication of increasingly growing research in Asian economic studies and a unique forum for continental Asian economic studies with focus on (i) special studies in adaptive innovation paradigms in Asian economic regimes, (ii) studies relative to unique dimensions of Asian economic development paradigm, as they are investigated by researchers, (iii) comparative studies of development paradigms in other developing continents, Latin America and Africa, (iv) the emerging new pattern of comparative advantages between Asian countries and the United States and North America.
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