Talk or Walk: Evidence on the Impact of Green Reporting on Corporate Green Growth

ABSTRACT

This study presents novel insights on modeling whether green reporting is merely talk or effectively drives corporate green growth, which is an essential factor for sustainable development and addressing environmental and climate‐related challenges. Using a panel of 26,071 firm‐year observations of Chinese A‐share listed firms from 2010 to 2022, this study examines how green reporting affects corporate green growth. The results show that green reporting significantly promotes corporate green growth, a finding robust to propensity‐score matching, an alternative productivity‐based measure, high‐dimensional fixed effects, and, to address reverse causality and omitted‐variable bias, a two‐stage least squares design that instruments green reporting with industry–year peer disclosure. Mechanism tests indicate that green reporting drives green growth by attracting high‐quality human resources, alleviating financing constraints, and stimulating green technological innovation. The effect is more pronounced for heavily polluting firms, firms under high media attention, and firms with green investors. These findings clarify when disclosure translates into genuine green progress and offer actionable implications for policymakers and practitioners in emerging economies.