IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v162y2026ics0264999326002105.html

Firm-level climate risk exposure and corporate resilience: Evidence from textual analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Yewen
  • Li, Cheng

Abstract

This paper constructs firm-level climate risk indicators using the pre-trained language model FinBERT based on textual data from investor interaction platforms, and empirically examines the impact of climate risk on corporate resilience using data from Chinese A-share listed companies. We find that climate risk significantly undermines corporate resilience through two distinct channels: on the asset side, it weakens profitability, triggering operational distress; on the liability side, it exacerbates financing constraints, leading to financial distress. The combined effect systematically reduces corporate resilience. Further analysis reveals that this adverse impact is more pronounced among firms with weaker cost pass-through capabilities and higher fixed asset growth rates. Importantly, drawing upon financial flexibility theory, we demonstrate that firms can effectively mitigate the negative impact of climate risk on resilience through cash flexibility strategies, such as holding excess cash, and debt flexibility strategies, such as optimizing debt maturity structures.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Yewen & Li, Cheng, 2026. "Firm-level climate risk exposure and corporate resilience: Evidence from textual analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:162:y:2026:i:c:s0264999326002105
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2026.107681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999326002105
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2026.107681?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    2. Wong, T.J. & Yu, Gwen & Zhang, Shubo & Zhang, Tianyu, 2024. "Calling for transparency: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1).
    3. Venky Nagar & Jordan Schoenfeld, 2024. "Measuring weather exposure with annual reports," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 1-32, March.
    4. Harry DeAngelo & Andrei S Gonçalves & René M Stulz, 2018. "Corporate Deleveraging and Financial Flexibility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(8), pages 3122-3174.
    5. Cheng, Sirui & Hua, Xiuping & Wang, Qingfeng, 2023. "Corporate culture and firm resilience in China: Evidence from the Sino-US trade war," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Wei, Wei & Zhang, Liyan & Zhang, Jing, 2024. "Executive team's digital background, financial flexibility and corporate innovation: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    7. Viral V. Acharya & Richard Berner & Robert Engle & Hyeyoon Jung & Johannes Stroebel & Xuran Zeng & Yihao Zhao, 2023. "Climate Stress Testing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 291-326, November.
    8. Vikrant Vig, 2013. "Access to Collateral and Corporate Debt Structure: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 881-928, June.
    9. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    10. Fatima Chalabi-Jabado & Ydriss Ziane, 2024. "Climate risks, financial performance and lending growth: Evidence from the banking industry," Post-Print hal-04702207, HAL.
    11. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    12. Philipp Krueger & Zacharias Sautner & Laura T Starks, 2020. "The Importance of Climate Risks for Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(3), pages 1067-1111.
    13. Klomp, Jeroen, 2014. "Financial fragility and natural disasters: An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 180-192.
    14. Dafermos, Yannis & Nikolaidi, Maria & Galanis, Giorgos, 2018. "Climate Change, Financial Stability and Monetary Policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 219-234.
    15. Zhou, Jian & Feng, Yin, 2025. "Climate risk, environmental supervision, and corporate green innovation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    16. James A. Ohlson & Beate E. Juettner-Nauroth, 2005. "Expected EPS and EPS Growth as Determinantsof Value," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 349-365, September.
    17. Rapp, Marc Steffen & Schmid, Thomas & Urban, Daniel, 2014. "The value of financial flexibility and corporate financial policy," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 288-302.
    18. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    19. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Isaac Sorkin & Henry Swift, 2020. "Bartik Instruments: What, When, Why, and How," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2586-2624, August.
    20. Victor Chernozhukov & Denis Chetverikov & Mert Demirer & Esther Duflo & Christian Hansen & Whitney Newey & James Robins, 2018. "Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(1), pages 1-68, February.
    21. Chalabi-Jabado, Fatima & Ziane, Ydriss, 2024. "Climate risks, financial performance and lending growth: Evidence from the banking industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    22. Thomas Dangl & Josef Zechner, 2021. "Debt Maturity and the Dynamics of Leverage [Rollover risk and market freezes]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(12), pages 5796-5840.
    23. Qing Li & Hongyu Shan & Yuehua Tang & Vincent Yao, 2024. "Corporate Climate Risk: Measurements and Responses," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(6), pages 1778-1830.
    24. Opler, Tim & Pinkowitz, Lee & Stulz, Rene & Williamson, Rohan, 1999. "The determinants and implications of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-46, April.
    25. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2011. "Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the US," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 152-185, October.
    26. Wu, Xin & Bai, Xiao & Qi, Hanying & Lu, Lanxin & Yang, Mingyuan & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2023. "The impact of climate change on banking systemic risk," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 419-437.
    27. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    28. David Hirshleifer & Tyler Shumway, 2003. "Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1009-1032, June.
    29. Liu, Yu-Chen & Li, Yiting, 2024. "Corporate finance, collateralized borrowing, and monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    30. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2012. "The Impact of Pollution on Worker Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3652-3673, December.
    31. Elliott, Robert J.R. & Strobl, Eric & Sun, Puyang, 2015. "The local impact of typhoons on economic activity in China: A view from outer space," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 50-66.
    32. Zhang, Baizhen & Zhang, Jingjing & Chen, Changrun, 2024. "Digital technology innovation and corporate resilience," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    33. Sam Ronald & Suwandi Ng & Fransiskus Eduardus Daromes, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility as Economic Mechanism for Creating Firm Value," Indonesian Journal of Sustainability Accounting and Management, Asian Online Journal Publishing Group, vol. 3(1), pages 22-36.
    34. Yewen Wang & Jiaxuan Tang & Cheng Li, 2025. "How does digital transformation affect corporate resilience: a moderation perspective study," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(2), pages 121-134, January.
    35. Rui Albuquerque & Yrjö Koskinen & Chendi Zhang, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Risk: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4451-4469, October.
    36. Lee, Charles M.C. & Zhong, Qinlin, 2022. "Shall we talk? The role of interactive investor platforms in corporate communication," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2).
    37. Barclay, Michael J & Smith, Clifford W, Jr, 1995. "The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 609-631, June.
    38. Torsten Ehlers & Frank Packer & Kathrin de Greiff, 2022. "The pricing of carbon risk in syndicated loans: which risks are priced and why?," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Statistics for Sustainable Finance, volume 56, Bank for International Settlements.
    39. Siamak Javadi & Abdullah‐Al Masum & Mohsen Aram & Ramesh P. Rao, 2023. "Climate change and corporate cash holdings: Global evidence," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 253-295, June.
    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. Wan, Jiayu & Li, Sijia & Li, Bin & Tan, Yinghui, 2026. "Can Fintech development enhance corporate resilience? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 99(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. Ren, Yi-Shuai & Klein, Tony & Jiang, Yong, 2025. "Corporate investment decisions amid climate risks: Relocate or stay?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Bardos, Katsiaryna Salavei & Mishra, Dev R. & Somé, Hyacinthe Y., 2025. "Firm-level climate sentiments, climate politics and implied cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    3. Bing Zhu & Franz Fuerst, 2026. "The Transmission of Climate Hazard Exposure to Equity Risk: Evidence From Real Estate Firms," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 451-510, October.
    4. Breckenfelder, Johannes & Maćkowiak, Bartosz & Marqués-Ibáñez, David & Olovsson, Conny & Popov, Alexander & Porcellacchia, Davide & Schepens, Glenn, 2023. "The climate and the economy," Working Paper Series 2793, European Central Bank.
    5. Henry He Huang & Joseph Kerstein & Chong Wang, 2018. "The impact of climate risk on firm performance and financing choices: An international comparison," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(5), pages 633-656, July.
    6. Kim, Incheol & Lee, Suin & Ryou, Jiwoo, 2024. "Does climate risk influence analyst forecast accuracy?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Cui, Weihan & Cuong, Ly Kim & Shimizu, Katsutoshi, 2020. "Cash policy and the bank-firm relationship," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 804-818.
    8. Guo, Chenhao & Zhong, Rui, 2025. "Is green revenue vanity or sanity? Evidence from corporate cash holdings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    9. Atanassov, Julian & Lattanzio, Gabriele & Ysmailov, Bektemir, 2026. "Strategic cash portfolio management in the face of policy uncertainty: Evidence from U.S. firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Abinzano, Isabel & Corredor, Pilar & Mansilla-Fernández, José Manuel, 2026. "Physical climate risk and banks’ credit risk: Worldwide evidence," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Xu, Weidong & Huang, Wenxuan & Li, Donghui, 2024. "Climate risk and investment efficiency," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Xiaoyang Li & Xinyue Zhang, 2025. "Climate Change Exposure and Cash Holdings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-35, January.
    13. Chen, Xinming & Fang, Tong, 2024. "Temperature anomalies and foreign direct investment: City-level evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    14. De Juan Fernández, Aránzazu & Poncela, Pilar & Rodríguez Caballero, Carlos Vladimir & Ruiz Ortega, Esther, 2022. "Economic activity and climate change," DES - Working Papers. Statistics and Econometrics. WS 35044, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Estadística.
    15. Liang, Yuchao & Tan, Qi & Pang, Jun, 2024. "Bless or curse, how does extreme temperature shape heavy pollution companies' ESG performance?-Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    16. Chen, KanXiang & Teng, Fangfei & Razzaq, Asif & Li, Chengnan, 2025. "Climate conditions, credit risk cycles, and technological progress: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    17. Beiqi Lin & Shunji Mei & Kelvin Jui Keng Tan & Lei Zhang, 2024. "Do exchange traded funds affect corporate cash holdings?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(5-6), pages 1547-1592, May.
    18. Viet Anh Dang & Ning Gao & Tiancheng Yu, 2023. "Climate Policy Risk and Corporate Financial Decisions: Evidence from the NO x Budget Trading Program," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(12), pages 7517-7539, December.
    19. Nguyen, Tung D. & Gregoriou, Andros & Duong, Kiet Tuan & Le, Huong, 2026. "Climate change exposure and precautionary financial policy: Cross-country evidence," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:ecmode:v:162:y:2026:i:c:s0264999326002105. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    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.