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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The New Road to Sustainability: Higher Education
Agglomeration and Firm ESG Performance
1
Development and Planning Department, Minjiang University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
2
NewHuadu Business School, Minjiang University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
3
Principal Training Department, Fujian Institute of Education, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
Submission date: 2024-01-27
Final revision date: 2024-03-21
Acceptance date: 2024-04-13
Online publication date: 2024-06-19
Publication date: 2025-01-09
Corresponding author
E Lin
Principal Training Department, Fujian Institute of Education, No.73, Mengshan Road, Gulou District,, 350108, Fuzhou, China
Principal Training Department, Fujian Institute of Education, No.73, Mengshan Road, Gulou District,, 350108, Fuzhou, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2025;34(2):1469-1479
KEYWORDS
University town constructionhigher education agglomerationfirm ESG performancegreen developmentdifference-in-differences
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
This paper will explore a novel tool to improve firm ESG performance by mitigating human
capital frictions. Exploiting the Chinese university town construction as an exogenous quasi-natural
experiment, this paper explores whether and how higher education agglomeration affects the firm’s
ESG performance with the difference-in-differences (DID) method. We find that the higher education
agglomeration would improve the firm ESG performance. This effect is more prominent in SOE
and high-tech firms. Additionally, the potential channels for improvement in firm ESG performance
are that higher education agglomerations would increase human capital and hire more skilled workers.
Overall, this paper explores the new contribution to ESG improvement from the higher education
agglomeration.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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| eISSN: | 2083-5906 |
| ISSN: | 1230-1485 |
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