This paper investigates the divergence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings based on data from six prominent ESG rating agencies: Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini (KLD), Sustainalytics, Moody’s ESG (Vigeo-Eiris), S&P Global (RobecoSAM), Refinitiv (Asset4), and MSCI. We document the rating divergence and map the different methodologies onto a common taxonomy of categories. Using this taxonomy, we decompose the divergence into contributions of scope, measurement, and weight. Measurement contributes 56% of the divergence, scope 38%, and weight 6%. Further analyzing the reasons for measurement divergence, we detect a rater effect where a rater’s overall view of a firm influences the measurement of specific categories. The results call for greater attention to how the data underlying ESG ratings are generated

The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s mandated CEO pay ratio is a simple, but salient, metric that could resonate with employees given it focuses on their compensation. Reporting a relatively or surprisingly high ratio reduces employee perceptions of their pay, views of the CEO, and hampers productivity growth. Employee pay satisfaction drops after disclosing a high ratio even if their wages were previously disclosed and when the pay ratio disclosure adds little new information. Disclosures by firms with a high ratio contain more discretionary language to explain the ratio or portray employee relations positively and are more likely to be covered by the media. However, neither information source substantially alters the employee response to a salient ratio. Our work illustrates that requiring firms to disclose a salient metric can have unintended consequences on employees and suggests caution in requiring firms to report simplified Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics that are inherently multifaceted

We study whether institutional investors that sign the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a commitment to responsible investing, exhibit better portfolio-level environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. Signatories outside of the USA have superior ESG scores than nonsignatories, but US signatories have at best similar ESG ratings, and worse scores if they have underperformed recently, are retail-client facing, and joined the PRI late. US signatories do not improve the ESG scores of portfolio companies after investing in them. Commercial motives, uncertainty about fiduciary duties, and lower ESG market maturity explain why US-domiciled PRI signatories do not follow through on their responsible investment commitments

Hedge funds that endorse the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) underperform other hedge funds after adjusting for risk but attract greater investor flows, accumulate more assets, and harvest greater fee revenues. Consistent with an agency explanation, the underperformance is driven by PRI signatories with low environmental, social, and governance (ESG) exposures and is greater for hedge funds with poor incentive alignment. To address endogeneity, we exploit regulatory reforms that enhance stewardship and show that the ESG exposure and relative performance of signatory funds improve post reforms. Our findings suggest that some hedge funds endorse responsible investment to pander to investor preferences

We show that engagement on environmental, social, and governance issues can benefit shareholders by reducing firms’ downside risks. We find that the risk reductions (measured using value at risk [VaR] and lower partial moments) vary across engagement types and success rates. Engagement is most effective in lowering downside risk when addressing environmental topics (primarily climate change). Further, targets with large downside risk reductions exhibit a decrease in environmental incidents after the engagement. We estimate that the VaR of engagement targets decreases by 9 percent of the standard deviation after successful engagements, relative to control firms.

This article shows how sustainable investing—through the joint practice of exclusionary screening and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration—affects asset returns. I develop an asset pricing model with partial segmentation and heterogeneous preferences. I characterize two exclusion premia generalizing Merton’s (1987) premium on neglected stocks and a taste premium that clarifies the relationship between ESG and financial performance. Focusing on US stocks, I estimate the model by applying it to sin stocks as excluded assets and using the holdings of green funds to proxy for environmental integration. The average annual exclusion effect is 2.79% for the period 1999–2019. Although the annual taste effect ranges from –1.12% to + 0.14% across industries for 2007–19, the taste effect spread between the top and bottom terciles of companies within each industry can exceed 2% per year. Finally, I estimate and explain the dynamics of these premia

Sustainable finance—the integration of environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) issues into financial decisions—is an increasingly important topic. Within companies, sustainability is no longer an ancillary issue confined to corporate social responsibility departments, but a CEO-level issue fundamental to the core business. Within the investment industry, sustainability used to be the exclusive domain of “socially responsible investors” who had social as well as financial objectives, but is now mainstream and includes investors with purely financial goals. This article introduces the RF Special Issue on Sustainability. It highlights three reasons for the rapid rise in sustainable finance—its financial relevance, its contribution to nonfinancial objectives, and investor tastes. It then summarizes the eight articles in the Special Issue, in particular drawing out their contributions to the literature. Finally, we offer ideas for future research