Structural characteristics of carbon information disclosure networks and the impact on carbon emission performance: Evidence from China

Improving corporate carbon emission performance is an important driving force for realising the low-carbon development of China's economy. Carbon information disclosure is an environmental regulatory tool proposed in the context of carbon neutrality, this study examines whether carbon information disclosure effectively influences carbon emission performance. Based on the data from 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2021, this paper examines the structural characteristics of carbon information disclosure using social network analysis, accounting for the carbon emission performance of industrial enterprises in each province in China. Using the spatial econometric model, we apply the undesirable slacks-based measure model and examine the impact of the spatial network characteristics of carbon information disclosure on carbon emission performance. Results show that the overall density of carbon information disclosure networks of industrial enterprises in Chinese provinces is low, so there is much room for improvement. Additionally, there is spatial dependence on carbon emission performance among neighbouring provinces. Moreover, the out-degree centrality and betweenness centrality of carbon information disclosure networks significantly negatively affect carbon emission performance. However, the inhibitory effect of the in-degree centrality of carbon information disclosure networks on carbon emission performance is not significant. The unique findings of this paper are relevant to environmental policy formulation and assessment.