Do the Age and Gender of Chairperson Affect Firms’ Environmental Protection Investment?

Abstract

Environmental investment of companies can not only bring profits to firms but also contribute to environmental protection. However, little is known about how chairperson characteristics affect companies’ decisions on environmental investment. This paper fills the gap in the literature by studying the impact of chairperson characteristics on firms’ environmental investment. For empirical evidence, we conduct a regression on environmental protection disclosure data of Chinese listed companies sourced from the CSMAR database. We find that China’s overall environmental protection disclosure level is relatively low. The age of the chairperson has an inverted U-shaped relationship with environmental investment, and a female chairperson has a significant positive effect on environmental investment. Contrarily, the education level and political connections of the chairperson have no significant impact on firms’ environmental investment. Understanding the effect of these factors will help companies plan their environmental protection activities more efficiently.