Achieving common prosperity for all is an essential requirement of socialism with Chinese characteristics,and a good environmental,social,and governance (ESG) performance may have an important impact on optimizing the pay distribution pattern of enterprises and contribute to solidifying the microfoundations of common prosperity. This study takes China's A-share non-financial listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2009 to 2022 as samples,and empirically tests the impact of ESG performance on the relative pay gap among employees and its mechanisms from the perspective of the executive-employee pay gap. The results show that a good ESG performance narrows the relative pay gap among employees,and this effect is achieved by improving the enterprise's employment skill structure,enhancing its production technology level,and strengthening external supervisory forces. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the negative impact of corporate ESG performance on the relative pay gap among employees is particularly significant in large-scale enterprises,enterprises situated in regions with unfavorable bus-iness environments,and those in the declining phase of their life cycle. Further analysis reveals that a good environmental per-formance narrows the relative pay gap among employees by improving the enterprise's employment skill structure and enhancing its production technology level;a good social performance narrows the relative pay gap among employees through the same channels as those in the benchmark regression;and a good governance performance has,to some extent,widened the relative pay gap. Therefore,enterprises should integrate ESG concepts into their development strategies to narrow the relative pay gap among em-ployees and promote common prosperity.
; 任晓婷
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