Abstract: Faced with the continuous decline in the investment rate of real enterprises, the Central Committee of CPC proposes to optimize the business environment in order to promote corporate investments. On the basis of the systematic analysis of the internal mechanism of the impact of business environment on corporate investments, this paper conducts an empirical test by making use of the data of China's business environment and A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020. The findings show that, firstly, the improvement of the business environment can significantly promote corporate investments. This conclusion still holds after using port opening history as a tool variable to solve the endogeneity problems and a series of robustness tests. Secondly, the results of the heterogeneity test show that, at the level of enterprise ownership, the improvement of business environment can play a more significant role in promoting the investment of non-state-owned enterprises. At the industrial level, the improvement of business environment plays an even more significant role in promoting the investments of enterprises in the manufacturing industry as well as in the industries with lower and medium technology. At the regional level, the improvement of business environment in the eastern region and the areas with higher degree of privatization plays a much more significant role in promoting enterprise investments. Thirdly, further mechanism tests show that the improvement of business environment can promote enterprise investments mainly by easing the financing constraints on the enterprises. Therefore, all the regions should focus on simplifying the process of administrative examination and approval for enterprises, perfecting the legal system, optimizing the financial environment, and strengthening the infrastructure construction, so as to promote corporate investments by improving the business environment.

Key words: business environment, corporate investment, financing restraints