Third-party ESG information provision and corporate labor employment

This study examines the impact of third-party ESG information provision on corporate labor employment using the inclusion of corporate ESG ratings by Bloomberg as a quasi-natural experiment. The analysis employs data from Chinese listed companies from 2006 to 2024. To address sample selection bias, the research uses a multi-period difference-in-differences approach combined with propensity score matching. The findings show that corporate labor employment significantly increases following their inclusion in Bloomberg's ESG rating system, a result that holds in various robustness tests. The mechanism analysis shows that third-party ESG information provision promotes employment by attracting institutional investors and easing financing constraints. Notably, the employment effect of ESG information provision by third-party rating agencies is more pronounced in private firms and firms with higher managerial ownership. These findings underscore the role of ESG rating agencies as information intermediaries in promoting employment through enhanced external governance and information transmission.