AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AJWEP026250172
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Carbon information disclosure quality as a driver of firm value: Unpacking the mediating roles of trading volume, reputation, and financing costs

Lingyun Yu1 ,  Vesarach Aumeboonsuke1 ,  Jiafu Su2*
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1 International College, National Institute of Development Administration, Bangkok , Thailand
2 International College, Krirk University, Bangkok , Thailand
AJWEP, 026250172 https://doi.org/10.36922/AJWEP026250172
Received: 16 June 2026 | Revised: 23 September 2026 | Accepted: 23 September 2026 | Published online: 6 November 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Based on the annual observations of approximately 2,500 high-carbon industry listed companies in China’s A-share market from 2020 to 2024, this article examines the impact of carbon information disclosure quality (CID) on enterprise value and its mechanism, and discusses its implications for environmental policies, low-carbon governance, and sustainable development. The study uses transaction volume, corporate reputation, and financing cost as mediating variables, and public attention as a moderating variable, and employs fixed-effect models, mediation tests, and instrumental variable methods for empirical analysis. The results show that the quality of carbon disclosure significantly enhances enterprise value, and the three mediating paths present a parallel transmission structure; public attention positively moderates the impact of disclosure on the mediating variables, but it negatively moderates the relationship between reputation and enterprise value. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the value effect is more significant in large enterprises, low-carbon industries, and non-carbon trading pilot regions. The paper argues that the value effect of carbon disclosure is a market incentive that can inform carbon disclosure regulation, strengthen environmental accountability, and develop green finance, indirectly influencing enterprises’ environmental governance through financing, reputation, and external supervision. However, this paper does not directly test actual carbon emissions or environmental performance improvements. CID measures the quality of disclosure, but does not measure carbon emissions, carbon intensity, or the extent of reduction. High-quality disclosure does not necessarily lead to high environmental performance. Policy-wise, it is necessary to promote hierarchical disclosure, strengthen verification and greenwashing accountability, and develop green finance, thereby converting market incentives into sustainable low-carbon transitions. Future research needs to match carbon emission data for further verification.

Keywords
Carbon information
Disclosure quality
Firm value
Information asymmetry theory
Environmental accountability
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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