Public Data Availability and Corporate ESG Performance: Evidence From Online Data‐Sharing Platforms in China

ABSTRACT

This study examines whether public data availability improves corporate ESG performance. Exploiting the rollout of China's data‐sharing platforms as a quasi‐natural experiment, we find that platform adoption significantly enhances firms' ESG outcomes. Treated firms exhibit lower toxic emissions, higher labor income shares and charitable giving, and lower overhead costs and excessive managerial perks. Mechanism analyses show that these effects arise through improved firm performance, reduced information asymmetry, greater ESG‐oriented institutional ownership, and stronger public attention, with public scrutiny playing the most important role. Heterogeneity tests suggest that public data‐sharing platforms function primarily as opacity‐reducing, information‐forcing interventions: effects are stronger among firms with poorer information quality, tighter financial constraints, and private ownership, and in cities with higher‐quality platform data. Public data availability also amplifies the performance penalties associated with negative ESG events, indicating that it makes ESG‐related information more salient and economically consequential.