IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v88y2025icp947-970.html

ESG-related comment letters and ESG rating disagreement

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Ruiqian
  • Tang, Xiaoxuan
  • Li, Muyao

Abstract

Grounded on deterrence theory, this study adopts textual analysis to identify comment letters related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and explores whether and how these letters influence ESG rating disagreement, using data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2018 to 2023. Our findings indicate that ESG-related comment letters effectively reduce ESG rating disagreement, with consistent results even after conducting various robustness tests. Moreover, the quality of ESG information disclosure can weaken the inhibitory effect of ESG-related comment letters on ESG rating disagreement, confirming an information substitution effect. In contrast, greater institutional ownership amplifies the inhibitory effect of ESG-related comment letters, supporting a supervisory complementary effect. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of ESG-related comment letters on reducing ESG rating disagreement is particularly significant among state-owned enterprises, firms receiving high media attention, and those operating in highly competitive industries. Additional analysis shows that ESG-related comment letters have a significant negative effect on environmental and social rating disagreement, whereas their impact on governance rating disagreement is positive. This study offers novel insights into strategies for reducing ESG rating disagreement.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Ruiqian & Tang, Xiaoxuan & Li, Muyao, 2025. "ESG-related comment letters and ESG rating disagreement," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 947-970.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:88:y:2025:i:c:p:947-970
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.10.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625004151
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2025.10.014?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:ecanpo:v:88:y:2025:i:c:p:947-970. 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.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    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.