Muhammad Suhrab

This study investigates how corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance shapes the commercialization of green innovations under market‐based environmental regulations (MBERs) in China, a context of heterogeneous policy enforcement and rapid sustainability transitions. While prior research emphasizes green invention, the factors enabling market adoption remain underexplored. We argue that ESG serves as a strategic capability, facilitating commercialization through two complementary channels: signaling legitimacy to partners and enhancing access to preferential financial resources. Using a balanced panel of 403 Chinese A‐share firms (2011–2024), we employ two‐way fixed effects, system GMM, and a staggered difference‐in‐differences design leveraging provincial Green Credit Guideline rollouts. Results show that ESG significantly boosts green innovation commercialization, particularly via the social and environmental pillars. Green credit policies and carbon emissions trading amplify this effect, and their combination yields synergistic complementarities. Findings offer actionable insights for managers, investors, and policymakers aiming to accelerate sustainable technology diffusion.

This study examines the dual-edged role of digital finance (DF) and regional innovation (RI) in shaping corporate excess leverage (CEL) within China’s swiftly evolving economic landscape. Drawing on a comprehensive panel dataset of 1200 firm-year observations from Chinese listed firms (2011–2020). Combining theories of optimal capital structure, credit market dynamics and systemic risk, we employ fixed effects, two-stage least squares, system GMM and quantile regression techniques. The findings reveal a nuanced paradox: while digital finance significantly expands credit access, it simultaneously exacerbates corporate leverage, challenging the narrative that technological innovations invariably democratize financial markets. Moreover, regional innovation, contrary to Schumpeterian expectations, fails to independently mitigate leverage risk without robust institutional frameworks, exposing systemic vulnerabilities in debt-driven ecosystems. Notably, our analysis reveals significant heterogeneity across ownership structures: state-owned enterprises (SOEs) exploit regional innovation for policy-driven objectives and escalate leverage, whereas private firms (POEs) face heightened risks from unregulated DF due to agency costs and weaker safeguards. The study advances existing theoretical perspectives by (1) bridging the credit expansion and financial constraint framework; (2) refining the resource-based review, highlighting that state-backed resources distort innovation‒leverage dynamics, amplifying financial instability in SOEs; and (3) extending agency theory to the financial ecosystem, where regulatory asymmetries and information gaps intensify managerial risk-taking. Practically, we propose adaptive policies: AI-driven surveillance in innovation hubs for real-time risk mitigation and institutional capacity-building in underdeveloped regions to balance financial inclusion with stability.