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Is Corporate Social Responsibility investing a free lunch? The relationship between ESG, tail risk, and upside potential of stocks before and during the COVID-19 crisis

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  • Lööf, Hans
  • Sahamkhadam, Maziar
  • Stephan, Andreas

Abstract

Did Corporate Social Responsibility investing benefit shareholders during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis? Distinguishing between downside tail risk and upside reward potential of stock returns, we provide evidence from 5,073 stocks listed on stock markets in ten countries. The findings suggest that better ESG ratings are associated with lower downside risk, but also with lower upside return potential. Thus, ESG ratings helped investors to reduce their risk exposure to the market turmoil caused by the pandemic, while maintaining the fundamental trade-off between risk and reward.

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  • Lööf, Hans & Sahamkhadam, Maziar & Stephan, Andreas, 2022. "Is Corporate Social Responsibility investing a free lunch? The relationship between ESG, tail risk, and upside potential of stocks before and during the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:46:y:2022:i:pb:s1544612321004748
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2021.102499
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    1. Mustafa Hakan Eratalay & Ariana Paola Cortés Ángel, 2022. "The Impact of ESG Ratings on the Systemic Risk of European Blue-Chip Firms," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-41, March.
    2. Ioannis Passas & Konstantina Ragazou & Eleni Zafeiriou & Alexandros Garefalakis & Constantin Zopounidis, 2022. "ESG Controversies: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis for the Sociopolitical Determinants in EU Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Alberto Barroso del Toro & Laura Vivas Crisol & Xavier Tort-Martorell, 2022. "Comparing the Impacts of Sustainability Narratives on American and European Energy Shareholders: A Multi-Event Study Analysing Reactions to News before and during COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-18, November.
    4. Zhang, Huilin, 2022. "Mandatory corporate social responsibility disclosure and firm innovation: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    5. Hans Lööf & Maziar Sahamkhadam & Andreas Stephan, 2023. "Incorporating ESG into Optimal Stock Portfolios for the Global Timber & Forestry Industry," Journal of Forest Economics, now publishers, vol. 38(2), pages 133-157, June.
    6. Bax, Karoline & Sahin, Özge & Czado, Claudia & Paterlini, Sandra, 2023. "ESG, risk, and (tail) dependence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    7. Chen, Jing & Zhao, Deqiang & Liu, Xinghe & Xu, Cheng & Liu, Luyao, 2022. "Home Sweet Home: Do Local CEOs Curb Stock Price Crash Risk?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    8. Sébastien Duchêne & Adrien Nguyen-Huu & Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger, 2022. "Risk-return trade-offs in the context of environmental impact: a lab-in-the-field experiment with finance professionals," Working Papers hal-03883121, HAL.
    9. Özge Sahin & Karoline Bax & Claudia Czado & Sandra Paterlini, 2022. "Environmental, Social, Governance scores and the Missing pillar—Why does missing information matter?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1782-1798, September.
    10. Pineau, Edouard & Le, Phuong & Estran, Rémy, 2022. "Importance of ESG factors in sovereign credit ratings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    11. Zhang, Jinjin & Wu, Jinyu & Luo, Yalin & Huang, Ziyan & He, Ruzhen, 2022. "COVID-19 pandemic, limited attention, and analyst forecast dispersion," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    12. Zhi Chen, 2023. "Investigate The ESG Score Methodology," Papers 2312.00202, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    13. Wang, Linyu & Ji, Yifan & Ni, Zhongxin, 2023. "Spillover of stock price crash risk: Do environmental, social and governance (ESG) matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Dahlström, Petter & Lööf, Hans & Sahamkhadam, Maziar & Stephan, Andreas, 2023. "Science-based emission targets and risk-adjusted portfolio return: An analysis using global SBTi-validated stocks," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 492, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    15. Guiyu Bai & Delin Meng, 2022. "Assessing Influence Mechanism of Management Overconfidence, Corporate Environmental Responsibility and Corporate Value: The Moderating Effect of Government Environmental Governance and Media Attention," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19, December.
    16. Gregory, Richard Paul, 2022. "ESG scores and the response of the S&P 1500 to monetary and fiscal policy during the Covid-19 pandemic," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 446-456.
    17. Palmieri, Egidio & Ferilli, Greta B. & Stefanelli, Valeria & Geretto, Enrico F. & Polato, Maurizio, 2023. "Assessing the influence of ESG score, industry, and stock index on firm default risk: A sustainable bank lending perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    18. Konstantina Ragazou & Ioannis Passas & Alexandros Garefalakis & Eleni Zafeiriou & Grigorios Kyriakopoulos, 2022. "The Determinants of the Environmental Performance of EU Financial Institutions: An Empirical Study with a GLM Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-15, July.
    19. Simona Galletta & Sebastiano Mazzù, 2023. "ESG controversies and bank risk taking," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 274-288, January.
    20. Du, Linda Y.L. & Sun, Jianfei, 2023. "Washing away their stigma? The ESG of “Sin” firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PB).
    21. Riccardo Savio & Edoardo D’Andrassi & Francesca Ventimiglia, 2023. "A Systematic Literature Review on ESG during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-17, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    ESG; COVID 19; Downside risk; Upside potential; Sustainalytics; Financial markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

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