Sustainability· 2026Q1
When Does ESG Enhance Export Resilience? The Moderating Role of ESG in the Innovation Response to Trade Policy Shocks
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- 2026year
Short summary
Chinese manufacturing firms with high R&D capability showed greater export resilience to the 2018 US-China trade shocks, and this buffering effect was further amplified by strong ESG performance.
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Key points
- Trade policy shocks significantly reduced export resilience for Chinese manufacturing firms.
- Pre-existing R&D capability acted as a core buffer against these negative impacts.
- ESG performance positively moderated the buffering effect of R&D, but offered limited independent protection.
- R&D and ESG performance showed synergistic complementarity in sustaining export resilience.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Maintaining export resilience against trade policy shocks is a critical challenge for industrial exporters amid rising global trade protectionism. Treating the 2018 US–China trade friction as a quasi-natural experiment, this study examines the interactive effects of research and development (R&D) capability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance based on panel data of Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2015 to 2024. Measuring export resilience via annual export growth deviations relative to the pre-shock benchmark, our continuous Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimates show that trade policy shocks significantly reduce corporate export resilience, whereas robust pre-shock R&D capability serves as a core buffer that mitigates this adverse impact. Furthermore, a quadruple interaction model indicates that ESG performance positively moderates the buffering effect of R&D rather than functioning as an independent buffer on its own. Marginal-effect comparisons confirm that the protective value of ESG is conditional on a firm’s innovation capacity; when R&D capability is weak, high ESG performance alone offers limited protection against tariff pressures. Overall, R&D capability and ESG performance exhibit synergistic complementarity in sustaining export resilience under external trade shocks.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Sustainability, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
General Economics, Econometrics and FinanceEconomics, Econometrics and Finance