The concept of ESG has become a global consensus, and the fulfillment of corporate ESG responsibilities is a key link in achieving China’s“dual carbon goals”and sustainable development of the whole society. Based on this, the 313 A-share listed companies selected by the MCSI ESG rating were used as the test group samples, and the double difference propensity score matching model (PSM-DID) was used to match the control group samples, and the ESG rating pairing was discussed from the perspective of theoretical mechanism and empirical analysis. The impact mechanism and path of orporate valuations, this study found: ① Whether it is a rating event or a rating score, being selected for ESG ratings can effectively increase the company’s valuation. ② There is a positive correlation between ESG rating adjustments and listed companies’ valuation adjustments, and rating upgrades will promote the increase in valuation, while the downgrade of the rating will lead to the decrease in valuation. However, this correlation has a diminishing effect over time, indicating that the capital market has a process of receiving, digesting, and positive feedback on ESG disclosure information. ③ ESG rating is based on institutional shareholding ratio, stock volatility, annual transaction volume, and financing cost four channels to affect corporate valuation, indicating that ESG has value discovery, risk suppression, information transmission, and financing constraints mitigation. ④ ESG ratings have heterogeneous effects on valuation. Compared with highcarbon companies, industrial companies, and agricultural companies, the valuations of low-carbon companies and service companies are more sensitive to ESG ratings. ⑤ Apply methods such as instrumental variable method, sample reorganization, and replacement of variables for endogeneity and robustness testing, and not change the research conclusions. The research results of this paper have important reference value for establishing the Chinese version of the ESG mandatory information disclosure system, unifying and improving ESG evaluation and rating standards, and promoting the high-quality development and value maximization of listed companies.

Restricted by the availability of investors’ account data, existing studies know little about the reasons for differences in investors’ return in financial markets. Given this, this paper, based on the unique account data, reveals that the differences in investors’ return are correlated to their locations in the social network. Conclusions are as follows. (1) Investors’ social network constructed based on the submission time of completed orders describes the information diffusion process of financial markets. Information diffuses from the center of the network to the edge, and investors’ return depends on their position in the network. (2) Investors’ social network affects their return through the positive spillover mechanism of their behavior. Wealthy investors are in the center of the social network, the stronger the information sharing, the higher the status in the network, the higher the return; while retail investors are on the edge of the social network, and when their network centrality is certain, they even suffer return penalty for information sharing. (3) The speed of information diffusion in investors’ social network has an important impact on asset pricing. Stocks’ volatility, return, and liquidity are high in financial markets with an intermediate level of information diffusion speed. This paper puts forward new reasons for differences in investors’ return from the perspective of investors’ social network, and holds that big data in the capital market deserve further exploration with the social network method.