IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i10p3361-d170985.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Sustainability Engagement Affect Stock Return Volatility? Evidence from the Chinese Financial Market

Author

Listed:
  • Junru Zhang

    (School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup WA 6027, Australia)

  • Hadrian Geri Djajadikerta

    (School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup WA 6027, Australia)

  • Zhaoyong Zhang

    (School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup WA 6027, Australia)

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of firms’ sustainability engagement on their stock returns and volatility by employing the EGARCH and FIGARCH models using data from the major financial firms listed in the Chinese stock market. We find evidence of a positive association between sustainability engagement and stock returns, suggesting firms’ sustainability news release in favour of the market. Although volatility persistence can largely be explained by news flows, the results show that sustainability news release has the significant and largest drop in volatility persistence, followed by popularity in Google search engine and the general news. Sustainability news release is found to affect positively stock return volatility. We also find evidence that market expectation can be driven by the dominant social paradigm when sustainability is included. These findings have important implications for market efficiency and effective portfolio management decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Junru Zhang & Hadrian Geri Djajadikerta & Zhaoyong Zhang, 2018. "Does Sustainability Engagement Affect Stock Return Volatility? Evidence from the Chinese Financial Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-21, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3361-:d:170985
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3361/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3361/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guillaume Gaetan Martinet & Michael McAleer, 2018. "On the invertibility of EGARCH(p, q)," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 824-849, September.
    2. Ling, Shiqing & McAleer, Michael, 2003. "Asymptotic Theory For A Vector Arma-Garch Model," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 280-310, April.
    3. Wenjing Li & Ran Zhang, 2010. "Corporate Social Responsibility, Ownership Structure, and Political Interference: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(4), pages 631-645, November.
    4. Ling, Shiqing & McAleer, Michael, 2002. "NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT MOMENT CONDITIONS FOR THE GARCH(r,s) AND ASYMMETRIC POWER GARCH(r,s) MODELS," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 722-729, June.
    5. Luo, Yadong & Xue, Qiuzhi & Han, Binjie, 2010. "How emerging market governments promote outward FDI: Experience from China," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 68-79, January.
    6. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    7. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    8. Michael McAleer & Christian M. Hafner, 2014. "A One Line Derivation of EGARCH," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-6, June.
    9. Michael McAleer & Les Oxley, 2002. "The Econometrics of Financial Time Series," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 237-243, July.
    10. Seungwoo Oh & Ahreum Hong & Junseok Hwang, 2017. "An Analysis of CSR on Firm Financial Performance in Stakeholder Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-12, June.
    11. CHIA-LIN CHANG & MICHAEL McALEER & ROENGCHAI TANSUCHAT, 2012. "Modelling Long Memory Volatility In Agricultural Commodity Futures Returns," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(02), pages 1-27.
    12. Liu, Xiaming & Wang, Chengang & Wei, Yingqi, 2001. "Causal links between foreign direct investment and trade in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 190-202.
    13. Yingjun Lu & Indra Abeysekera, 2017. "What Do Stakeholders Care About? Investigating Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 169-184, August.
    14. Isabel Lourenço & Manuel Branco & José Curto & Teresa Eugénio, 2012. "How Does the Market Value Corporate Sustainability Performance?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 417-428, July.
    15. Cochran, Steven J. & Mansur, Iqbal & Odusami, Babatunde, 2012. "Volatility persistence in metal returns: A FIGARCH approach," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 287-305.
    16. Freeman, R. Edward, 1994. "The Politics of Stakeholder Theory: Some Future Directions1," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 409-421, October.
    17. Michelle Rodrigue, 2014. "Contrasting realities: corporate environmental disclosure and stakeholder-released information," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 27(1), pages 119-149, January.
    18. Chen, Shimin & Sun, Zheng & Tang, Song & Wu, Donghui, 2011. "Government intervention and investment efficiency: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 259-271, April.
    19. Hasnas, John, 1998. "The Normative Theories of Business Ethics: A Guide for the Perplexed," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 19-42, January.
    20. Jouni Korhonen, 2002. "The dominant economics paradigm and corporate social responsibility," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 66-79, March.
    21. McAleer, Michael & Medeiros, Marcelo C., 2008. "A multiple regime smooth transition Heterogeneous Autoregressive model for long memory and asymmetries," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 104-119, November.
    22. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    23. Paul C. Tetlock, 2010. "Does Public Financial News Resolve Asymmetric Information?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(9), pages 3520-3557.
    24. Marcucci Juri, 2005. "Forecasting Stock Market Volatility with Regime-Switching GARCH Models," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 1-55, December.
    25. Manabu Asai & Michael McAleer & Marcelo C. Medeiros, 2012. "Asymmetry and Long Memory in Volatility Modeling," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 495-512, June.
    26. Baillie, Richard T. & Bollerslev, Tim & Mikkelsen, Hans Ole, 1996. "Fractionally integrated generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 3-30, September.
    27. Chang, Chia-Lin & McAleer, Michael, 2017. "The correct regularity condition and interpretation of asymmetry in EGARCH," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 52-55.
    28. Jouni Korhonen, 2003. "Should we measure corporate social responsibility?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(1), pages 25-39, March.
    29. James Cordeiro & Manish Tewari, 2015. "Firm Characteristics, Industry Context, and Investor Reactions to Environmental CSR: A Stakeholder Theory Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(4), pages 833-849, September.
    30. Felix Chan & Michael McAleer, 2003. "Estimating smooth transition autoregressive models with GARCH errors in the presence of extreme observations and outliers," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(8), pages 581-592.
    31. McAleer, Michael, 2005. "Automated Inference And Learning In Modeling Financial Volatility," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 232-261, February.
    32. Karl V. Lins & Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2017. "Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1785-1824, August.
    33. Michael McAleer, 2014. "Asymmetry and Leverage in Conditional Volatility Models," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-6, September.
    34. Ho, Kin-Yip & Shi, Yanlin & Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2013. "How does news sentiment impact asset volatility? Evidence from long memory and regime-switching approaches," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 436-456.
    35. Bentes, Sónia R., 2014. "Measuring persistence in stock market volatility using the FIGARCH approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 408(C), pages 190-197.
    36. Becchetti, Leonardo & Ciciretti, Rocco & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2015. "Corporate social responsibility, stakeholder risk, and idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 297-309.
    37. Theodoulidis, Babis & Diaz, David & Crotto, Federica & Rancati, Elisa, 2017. "Exploring corporate social responsibility and financial performance through stakeholder theory in the tourism industries," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 173-188.
    38. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    39. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    40. Philip Hans Franses & Michael McAleer, 2002. "Financial volatility: an introduction," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(5), pages 419-424.
    41. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    42. Bollerslev, Tim & Ole Mikkelsen, Hans, 1996. "Modeling and pricing long memory in stock market volatility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 151-184, July.
    43. Mark P. Sharfman & Chitru S. Fernando, 2008. "Environmental risk management and the cost of capital," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 569-592, June.
    44. Belkhouja, Mustapha & Boutahary, Mohamed, 2011. "Modeling volatility with time-varying FIGARCH models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1106-1116, May.
    45. Saeidi, Sayedeh Parastoo & Sofian, Saudah & Saeidi, Parvaneh & Saeidi, Sayyedeh Parisa & Saaeidi, Seyyed Alireza, 2015. "How does corporate social responsibility contribute to firm financial performance? The mediating role of competitive advantage, reputation, and customer satisfaction," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 341-350.
    46. Mehran, Hamid, 1995. "Executive compensation structure, ownership, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 163-184, June.
    47. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    48. Li, W K & Ling, Shiqing & McAleer, Michael, 2002. "Recent Theoretical Results for Time Series Models with GARCH Errors," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 245-269, July.
    49. W. K. Li & Shiqing Ling & Michael McAleer, 2002. "Recent Theoretical Results for Time Series Models with GARCH Errors," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 245-269, July.
    50. Shi, Yanlin & Ho, Kin-Yip, 2015. "Modeling high-frequency volatility with three-state FIGARCH models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 473-483.
    51. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    52. Ho, Kin-Yip & Shi, Yanlin & Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2017. "Does news matter in China’s foreign exchange market? Chinese RMB volatility and public information arrivals," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 302-321.
    53. Giles Atkinson, 2000. "Measuring Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 235-252.
    54. Jha, Anand & Cox, James, 2015. "Corporate social responsibility and social capital," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 252-270.
    55. Maretno Harjoto & Hoje Jo, 2015. "Legal vs. Normative CSR: Differential Impact on Analyst Dispersion, Stock Return Volatility, Cost of Capital, and Firm Value," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 1-20, April.
    56. Riordan, Ryan & Storkenmaier, Andreas & Wagener, Martin & Sarah Zhang, S., 2013. "Public information arrival: Price discovery and liquidity in electronic limit order markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1148-1159.
    57. Clarkson, Peter M. & Li, Yue & Richardson, Gordon D. & Vasvari, Florin P., 2008. "Revisiting the relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: An empirical analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(4-5), pages 303-327.
    58. Hoje Jo & Haejung Na, 2012. "Does CSR Reduce Firm Risk? Evidence from Controversial Industry Sectors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(4), pages 441-456, November.
    59. Wing Chow & Yang Chen, 2012. "Corporate Sustainable Development: Testing a New Scale Based on the Mainland Chinese Context," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(4), pages 519-533, February.
    60. McAleer, Michael & Oxley, Les, 2002. "The Econometrics of Financial Time Series," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 237-243, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tihana Škrinjarić, 2019. "Time Varying Spillovers between the Online Search Volume and Stock Returns: Case of CESEE Markets," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-30, October.
    2. Piñeiro-Chousa, Juan & López-Cabarcos, M. Ángeles & Pérez-Pico, Ada M. & Caby, Jérôme, 2023. "The influence of Twitch and sustainability on the stock returns of video game companies: Before and after COVID-19," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Zhang, Junru & Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2021. "CSR, Media and Stock Illiquidity: Evidence from Chinese Listed Financial Firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ho, Kin-Yip & Shi, Yanlin & Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2013. "How does news sentiment impact asset volatility? Evidence from long memory and regime-switching approaches," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 436-456.
    2. Chang, Chia-Lin & Jimenez-Martin, Juan-Angel & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & McAleer, Michael & Pérez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2019. "Choosing expected shortfall over VaR in Basel III using stochastic dominance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 95-113.
    3. Chia-Lin Chang & Michael Mcaleer, 2009. "Daily Tourist Arrivals, Exchange Rates and Voatility for Korea and Taiwan," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 25, pages 241-267.
    4. Michael McAleer, 2009. "The Ten Commandments For Optimizing Value‐At‐Risk And Daily Capital Charges," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 831-849, December.
    5. Chia-Lin Chang & Juan-Ángel Jiménez-Martín & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Michael McAleer & Teodosio Pérez-Amaral, 2015. "A Stochastic Dominance Approach to the Basel III Dilemma: Expected Shortfall or VaR?," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2015-16, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.
    6. Chia-Lin Chang & Yiying Li & Michael McAleer, 2018. "Volatility Spillovers between Energy and Agricultural Markets: A Critical Appraisal of Theory and Practice," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-19, June.
    7. Chan, Felix & Marinova, Dora & McAleer, Michael, 2004. "Modelling the asymmetric volatility of electronics patents in the USA," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 169-184.
    8. Divino, Jose Angelo & McAleer, Michael, 2010. "Modelling and forecasting daily international mass tourism to Peru," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 846-854.
    9. Jimenez-Martin, Juan-Angel & McAleer, Michael & Pérez-Amaral, Teodosio & Santos, Paulo Araújo, 2013. "GFC-robust risk management under the Basel Accord using extreme value methodologies," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 223-237.
    10. Chang, Chia-Lin & Jiménez-Martín, Juan-Ángel & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Pérez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2015. "A stochastic dominance approach to financial risk management strategies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(2), pages 472-485.
    11. McAleer, Michael & Jimenez-Martin, Juan-Angel & Perez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2013. "Has the Basel Accord improved risk management during the global financial crisis?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 250-265.
    12. Chia-Lin Chang & Michael Mcaleer, 2012. "Aggregation, Heterogeneous Autoregression And Volatility Of Daily International Tourist Arrivals And Exchange Rates," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 397-419, September.
    13. Chang, C-L. & Huang, B-W. & Chen, M-G., 2010. "Modelling the Asymmetric Volatility in Hog Prices in Taiwan," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2010-46, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    14. Chang, Chia-Lin & Huang, Biing-Wen & Chen, Meng-Gu & McAleer, Michael, 2011. "Modelling the asymmetric volatility in hog prices in Taiwan: The impact of joining the WTO," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 81(7), pages 1491-1506.
    15. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné, 2019. "The accuracy of asymmetric GARCH model estimation," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 157, pages 179-202.
    16. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 2005. "Volatility Forecasting," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-011, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    17. Michael McAleer & Bernardo da Veiga, 2008. "Single-index and portfolio models for forecasting value-at-risk thresholds," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 217-235.
    18. Andersen, Torben G. & Bollerslev, Tim & Christoffersen, Peter F. & Diebold, Francis X., 2006. "Volatility and Correlation Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 777-878, Elsevier.
    19. Chia-Lin Chang & Michael McAleer & Christine Lim, 2009. "Modelling Short and Long Haul Volatility in Japanese Tourist Arrivals to New Zealand and Taiwan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-647, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    20. Ana Bartolome & Michael McAleer & Vicente Ramos & Javier Rey-Maquieira, 2009. "Cruising is Risky Business," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-664, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3361-:d:170985. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.