Using a sample of 12,550 firm-year observations for the US over the period 2009–2021, we empirically examine the impact of environmental innovation on firm-level investment efficiency. Using fixed-effect regressions, our results indicate that eco-innovation has a significant and positive impact on firm-level investment efficiency. We show that eco-innovation raises investment efficiency and reducing information asymmetry enhances this effect. In addition, we show that the impact of eco-innovation on investment efficiency is statistically significant at environmentally sensitive firms, unlike firms that are environmentally insensitive. Further, the impact is higher at firms with low leverage than at firms with high leverage, in terms of both magnitude and economic significance, and the relative significance of this relationship is more pronounced at large firms. Our results are robust to alternative measures of eco-innovation, endogeneity, and sample selection bias.

我们使用 2009 年至 2021 年期间对美国 12,550 个公司进行年度观察的样本，实证检验了环境创新对公司层面投资效率的影响。使用固定效应回归，我们的结果表明生态创新对公司层面的投资效率具有显着且积极的影响。我们表明，生态创新提高了投资效率，而减少信息不对称则增强了这种效果。此外，我们还发现，与环境不敏感的公司不同，生态创新对环境敏感的公司的投资效率的影响在统计上是显着的。此外，无论是规模还是经济意义，低杠杆公司的影响都高于高杠杆公司，而且这种关系的相对重要性在大公司中更为明显。我们的结果对于生态创新、内生性和样本选择偏差的替代衡量标准是稳健的。