Greener Politicians, Less Greenwashing?
Time: 13:00-15:00 (UK Time), Wednesday, 30 September 2026
Presenters: Professor Alessandra Guariglia & Tong Liu, University of Birmingham
Chair: Professor Hong Bo, SOAS University of London
Online venue: Click here to join the seminar on Teams (For any inquiry about how to join the online seminar, please contact Dr. Meng Xie at xm1@soas.ac.uk)
Abstract
Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2015 to 2023, we investigate whether prefecture-level officials with environment-related work experience (green politicians) influence corporate greenwashing within their jurisdictions. To capture greenwashing, we develop a novel measure that identifies firms as engaging in greenwashing when they simultaneously disclose substantive positive environmental information and commit environmental violations in the same year. Our findings show that the presence of green politicians is associated with a significant reduction in corporate greenwashing. This result survives extensive robustness tests. Further analyses reveal that the negative association between green politicians and corporate greenwashing is more pronounced when the officials face stronger promotion incentives. Importantly, it persists in cities experiencing greater economic pressure, suggesting that environmental and economic objectives need not be mutually exclusive for local governments. Mechanism tests indicate that green politicians curb corporate greenwashing by fostering firms’ green innovation activities and alleviating their financing constraints. We conclude that the environmental expertise of local officials can serve as an effective governance mechanism for mitigating corporate greenwashing.
Speakers
Alessandra Guariglia is Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests range from corporate finance and the economics of transition in China, to health economics. Her research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, the Review of Finance, the British Journal of Management, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of International Economics, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Development Economics. She is co-editor in chief of the Journal of Climate Finance, co-editor of the Scottish Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, and associate editor of the European Journal of Finance and the British Accounting Review. She has been Head of the Department of Economics at Birmingham from 2012 to 2015, and Head of the Departments of Economics and Accounting & Finance at the University of Durham between 2009 and 2012. Prior to that, she has worked at the Universities of Nottingham, Kent, and Essex.
Tong Liu is a final-year PhD student in Economics at the University of Birmingham. Her research covers corporate finance and environmental economics, with a particular focus on textual analysis. Her work also examines green politicians, corporate green innovation and greenwashing, and structural monetary policy.