Green Tax Reform and Corporate R&D Manipulation: A Quasi‐Natural Experiment
利用中国环境保护税法实施的外生冲击，研究发现绿色税制改革通过优化环境信息披露、加强外部监督和降低合规交易成本，显著抑制了企业的研发操纵行为，并最终提升了创新质量与效率。
ABSTRACT Leveraging the exogenous shock of the implementation of China's Environmental Protection Tax Law, this study empirically examines the impact of green tax reform on corporate R&D manipulation. Using the sample of Chinese listed firms and employing a difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that green tax reform significantly curbs corporate R&D manipulation, specifically by reducing abnormal R&D expenditures. This conclusion remains robust after a series of tests. Mechanism analyses reveal that this effect operates primarily through three channels: the optimization of environmental information disclosure, enhanced supervisory governance by external stakeholders, and the reduction of transaction costs associated with regulatory compliance. Further analysis suggests that by mitigating R&D manipulation, green tax reform ultimately enhances both the quality and efficiency of corporate innovation. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on environmental regulation and corporate innovation by highlighting the governance role of green taxation, and provide important policy implications for designing market‐based environmental instruments to foster genuine and sustainable innovation.