Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 102 2027
Technological greenness and long-run performance: Evidence from the utility industry
Abstract
Firms’ green technology investments are increasingly important for competitive positioning, yet their impact on long-run performance remains unclear. Using electricity capacity data for global utility firms, we construct a unique structural measure of technological greenness based on renewable versus fossil fuel physical infrastructure. We find that adopting sustainable technologies is followed by a long-run improvement in corporate fundamentals that is only partially reflected in stock prices, yielding superior returns over a multi-year horizon. These results partly reflect higher revenue growth in liberalized retail markets rather than investor sentiment, revealing a consumer-based mechanism that likely extends to competitive downstream sectors.
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2026.103080
- Volume
- 102
- Pages
- 103080
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref