Environmental administrative penalty, environmental disclosures, and the firm’s cash flow: evidence from manufacturing firms in China

Environmental administrative penalty is a strong tool for the government to regulate environmental pollution. The influence of an environmental administrative penalty on a firm’s cash flow has become a hot topic in academics and industry. By employing ordinary least square and the bootstrap method, it is established that the penalty significantly reduces the firm’s cash flow in the succeeding year through incremental disclosures which play a mediating role. Further, we distinguished environmental information's nature and then measured it from negative, sensitive (hard) information and positive (soft) information aspects. However, it is found that the mediating effect of the two types of disclosure increment did not exist, respectively. These results help us to comprehend the significance of environmental management to the stability of corporate cash flow and have practical illumination to corporate environmental management and environmental pollution control.