关键词: ESG评级分歧, ESG投资, 数字化转型, 资本市场

Abstract: With the comprehensive promotion of green and low-carbon development, ESG investment is widely emerging globally. Though ESG rating is an important reference basis for ESG investment, ESG rating disagreement caused by information asymmetry between enterprises and rating agencies has become a major problem limiting ESG investment in China's capital market. This paper selects the rating data of seven domestic and foreign ESG rating agencies, and takes Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2021 as the research samples to empirically examine the effect and mechanism of corporate digital transformation on ESG rating disagreement. The test results are as follows: Firstly, the digital transformation of enterprises can alleviate the information asymmetry between enterprises and rating agencies by improving internal information transparency and enhancing external monitoring attention, thus suppressing the disagreement of ESG ratings, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests; Secondly,the inhibition effect of digital transformation on ESG rating disagreement is more significant for private enterprises, high-tech enterprises, non-“Big Four” audited enterprises and enterprises in regions with better digital infrastracture construction; Thirdly, further analysis shows that the inhibition of ESG rating disagreement by the digital transformation of enterprises can weaken the negative impact on China's capital market, i. e., it improves the liquidity of the stocks and reduces the synchronicity of the stock prices, which effectively improves the allocation efficiency of China's capital market. The research in this paper provides concrete ideas for mitigating ESG rating disagreement, which is of practical significance for promoting ESG investment and further promoting China's green and low-carbon development.

Key words: ESG Rating Disagreement, ESG Investment, Digital Transformation, Capital Market