The Economic Effects of China’s 2015 Environmental Protection Law

China’s revised Environmental Protection Law, adopted in 2014 and effective on 1 January 2015, strengthened the institutional framework for environmental governance. This article integrates bibliometric mapping with a systematic literature review to assess the law’s economic, business, environmental and financial consequences. A PRISMA-informed search of the Web of Science Core Collection identified 70 English-language journal articles in relevant fields available through 1 August 2026. This English-language, WoS-indexed evidence base is concentrated on listed firms, so the synthesis describes that literature rather than the full population of businesses affected by the law. Publication statistics, word frequency analysis, a six-topic Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model, VOSviewermapping (1.6.21), and article-level synthesis were applied. Studies report higher ESG scores, green investment, disclosure, patenting, and biodiversity risk attention in some settings. However, ESG improvements may concentrate in the environmental pillar, patent quantity may rise as quality declines, and disclosure responses vary with political protection. These corporate indicators do not themselves demonstrate lower emissions or ecological recovery. Financial and economic findings concern leverage, financialization, profitability, risk, capital costs, employment, labor-income shares, productivity, outward investment, and political behavior. Outcomes vary with firm characteristics, local enforcement, financing capacity, measurement, and research design. Overall, the evidence concerns multiple adjustment channels rather than a common net policy effect. Future research should measure realized enforcement, separate overlapping policies, connect corporate indicators to environmental outcomes, and broaden coverage beyond continuously listed heavily polluting firms.