We develop a continuous-time model in which an ESG investor hires a manager to run a project and incentivizes the manager to fulfill ESG responsibilities. The manager’s private efforts and ESG investing determine the project’s cash flow and ESG performance subject to random shocks. We derive the optimal contract and its implementation after introducing carbon credits following the cap-and-trade program in practice. We provide comparative static analysis and empirical implications. The results demonstrate that ESG investing enhances contract efficiency. The more significant the carbon emission reduction, or the less the cost of ESG investing, the higher the contract efficiency, the average q, the marginal q, and the optimal investment–capital ratios, implying that ESG investing mitigates inefficiencies arising from information asymmetry and enhances investment values. Our model predictions are partially verified by empirical facts

We examine whether firms' ESG performance is influenced by bondholder preferences. We argue that insurance companies have unique incentives to monitor bond issuers' ESG performance because insurers face enhanced exposures to ESG shocks in their balance sheets and trading operations. Consistent with this argument, we find that firms with higher bond ownership by insurance companies are associated with higher future ESG ratings. To address potential identification concerns, we test changes in bond issuers' ESG ratings following the initial bond investment by insurance companies. We find that firms' ESG performance improves after insurance companies' initial bond investment. We also find that this improvement in ESG performance is concentrated in firms with greater reliance on bond financing and investment capital from insurance companies. Our study underscores the importance of bond ownership structure in influencing corporate ESG performance

We investigate whether CEOs around the world are held accountable for stakeholder-related corporate misbehavior. The likelihood of CEO turnover increases significantly when the media coverage of the ESG incidents reaches extreme levels. CEO turnovers occur even in the cases where an incident does not lead to a stock price decline. In such cases, the board likely has a non-pecuniary motive for the turnover. This suggests that such non-pecuniary reputational concerns are an important determinant of CEO turnover decisions around the world, especially when the firm is facing intense public pressure due to stakeholder-related corporate misbehavior. This effect is more pronounced when firms are headquartered in stakeholder-oriented countries like many European countries

Corporate lobbying positively influences firm innovation outcomes. Firms that engage more in lobbying have more patents, more patent citations, and greater patent value. We establish this causality using instrumental variables estimation. Corporate lobbying plays a role of persuasion and fosters firm innovation by transmitting valuable information to politicians, which enhances firms' external political environment. The impact of lobbying on innovation is more pronounced for firms with comparative advantages in the product market, financial health, ESG performance, and institutional support. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of firms' information value in the political process and provide new insights into how lobbying buffs firm development

This paper examines the spillover effect of environmental regulatory pressure on firms' green technological innovation, from the perspective of supply chain relationships. Analyzing data from Chinese listed companies, we find that the average environmental regulatory pressure faced by the customer firms of a supplier firm enhances the green patent applications filed by the supplier firm. When the industry of the supplier is more competitive or the proportion of the supplier's sales from its largest customer is higher, the supplier feels more pressured to pursue green innovation, resulting in more green patent filings. Thus, via their negotiation power, customer firms can prompt the supplier firm to innovate to meet their demand for green technologies. Finally, we show that this effect is particularly pronounced when the supplier firm has a strong financial position, is located in a highly marketized region, receives low R&D government subsidies, or enjoys a high ESG rating

In this study, we explore the impact of the establishment of environmental courts, an environmental justice system, on the cost of equity capital. Based on a quasi-natural experiment of establishing environmental courts in China, we find that they have a deterrent effect and reduce the cost of equity capital for heavily polluting firms in localities. We also find that a low proportion of managerial ownership, a low level of analyst attention, and high environmental uncertainty induce this deterrent effect. Furthermore, mechanism tests indicate that environmental courts enhance corporate environmental engagement and corporate ESG ratings, increase long-term institutional investor ownership, and reduce urban environmental violations to achieve a deterrent effect. The findings are more pronounced for the trial court sample, firms in cities with lower public participation in environmental protection, and firms with lower environmental information transparency. We also suggest the impacts and underlying mechanisms of the environmental justice system on the equity capital market, which is conducive to long-term planning by firm managers

We analyse the effects of the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) launched by the ECB after the burst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The effects of the programme were different from the previous asset purchases. The PEPP significantly reduced the yield on bonds that at the same time were eligible to the programme and showed a green label. Via a triple difference estimator, we show that this effect is additional to the outperformance of greens vs non-green bonds that also occurred in the set of non-eligible bonds. All in all, the estimated impact stands at 51 basis points, a value that is significant also from an economic point of view: around 20 per cent of the cost of issuing a bond. From a climate change perspective, this evidence suggests that asset purchase programmes are an effective way of supporting firms financing climate-friendly investments on the bond market. In addition, we find that the issuers that benefitted most from the PEPP improved their ESG performance to a larger extent than other issuers