IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v89y2024ics0929119924001342.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family firms and carbon emissions

Author

Listed:
  • Borsuk, Marcin
  • Eugster, Nicolas
  • Klein, Paul-Olivier
  • Kowalewski, Oskar

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between family firms and carbon emissions using a large cross-country dataset of 6600 non-financial firms over the period 2010–2019. We find that family firms emit less carbon than non-family firms, especially after the Paris Agreement. Several factors contribute to this outcome, including governance structure, the degree of family control, R&D spending, and the issuance of green patents. Our study also shows that despite lower carbon emissions, family firms have lower environmental scores, primarily due to their reduced public commitment to emission reduction. Both environmental scores and carbon emissions increase when non-family CEOs are appointed and when family ownership decreases, indicating that agency conflicts may influence these outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Borsuk, Marcin & Eugster, Nicolas & Klein, Paul-Olivier & Kowalewski, Oskar, 2024. "Family firms and carbon emissions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:89:y:2024:i:c:s0929119924001342
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102672
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119924001342
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102672?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carbon emission; ESG; Governance; Family firms; Greenwashing; Climate change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:corfin:v:89:y:2024:i:c:s0929119924001342. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin .

    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.