IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i2p852-d723215.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is ESG Relevant to Electricity Companies during Pandemics? A Case Study on European Firms during COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Florin Teodor Boldeanu

    (Department of Finance, Accounting and Economic Theory, Faculty of Economic Sciences and Business Administration, Transilvania University of Brasov, 500036 Brașov, Romania)

  • José Antonio Clemente-Almendros

    (Business and Communication Faculty, International University of La Rioja, 26006 Logroño, Spain)

  • Ileana Tache

    (Department of Marketing, Tourism-Services and International Business, Faculty of Economic Sciences and Business Administration, Transilvania University of Brasov, 500036 Brașov, Romania)

  • Luis Alberto Seguí-Amortegui

    (Business and Communication Faculty, International University of La Rioja, 26006 Logroño, Spain)

Abstract

The electricity sector was negatively impacted by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), with considerable declines in consumption in the initial phase. Investors were in turmoil, and stock prices for these companies plummeted. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the significant negative influence of the pandemic on abnormal returns for the electricity sector, specifically for traditional and renewable companies and the influence of ESG scores, using the event study approach and multi-variate regressions. Our results show that the pandemic indeed had a negative impact on the electricity sector, with renewable electricity companies suffering a sharper decline than traditional ones. Moreover, we find that ESG pillar scores affected electricity companies differently and are sector-specific. For renewable electricity companies, the returns were positively influenced by the environmental ESG scores and negatively by governance ESG scores.

Suggested Citation

  • Florin Teodor Boldeanu & José Antonio Clemente-Almendros & Ileana Tache & Luis Alberto Seguí-Amortegui, 2022. "Is ESG Relevant to Electricity Companies during Pandemics? A Case Study on European Firms during COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:852-:d:723215
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/852/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/852/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pinglin He & Yulong Sun & Ying Zhang & Tao Li, 2020. "COVID–19’s Impact on Stock Prices Across Different Sectors—An Event Study Based on the Chinese Stock Market," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 2198-2212, August.
    2. Orlitzky, Marc & Shen, Jie, 2013. "Corporate Social Responsibility, Industry, and Strategy," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 346-350, December.
    3. Rizwan, Muhammad Suhail & Ahmad, Ghufran & Ashraf, Dawood, 2020. "Systemic risk: The impact of COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    4. Niţoi, Mihai & Pochea, Maria Miruna, 2020. "Time-varying dependence in European equity markets: A contagion and investor sentiment driven analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 133-147.
    5. Qing He & Junyi Liu & Sizhu Wang & Jishuang Yu, 2020. "The impact of COVID-19 on stock markets," Economic and Political Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 275-288, 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. Rim El Khoury & Nohade Nasrallah & Khaled Hussainey, 2022. "Exploring the performance of responsible companies in G20 during the COVID-19 outbreak," Post-Print hal-03761427, HAL.

    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. Zhang, Wenwen & Cao, Shuo & Zhang, Xuan & Qu, Xuefeng, 2023. "COVID-19 and stock market performance: Evidence from the RCEP countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 717-735.
    2. STEFANOVA, Julia Stoyancheva, 2022. "Problems And Prospects To Sustainable Development In Covid-19 “New Normal”: Evidence From Western Balkans’ Stock Markets," Studii Financiare (Financial Studies), Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 26(3), pages 6-34, September.
    3. Foglia, Matteo & Addi, Abdelhamid & Angelini, Eliana, 2022. "The Eurozone banking sector in the time of COVID-19: Measuring volatility connectedness," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    4. Michał Buszko & Witold Orzeszko & Marcin Stawarz, 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic and stability of stock market—A sectoral approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(5), pages 1-26, May.
    5. Ani SUMARMI & Dyah SAWITRI & Umi MUAWANAH & Abdul HALIM, 2021. "Indonesian Capital Market Investors’ Reaction To The Events Of The Covid-19 Pandemic," Business Excellence and Management, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 11(5), pages 138-157, October.
    6. Camelia-Daniela Hategan & Ruxandra-Ioana Curea-Pitorac & Vasile-Petru Hategan, 2020. "Responsible Communication of Romanian Companies for Ensuring Public Health in a COVID-19 Pandemic Context," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-16, November.
    7. Muhammad Saeed & Ijaz Ahmad & Muhammad Ahmad Usman, 2021. "Do the stocks' returns and volatility matter under the COVID-19 pandemic? A Case Study of Pakistan Stock Exchange," iRASD Journal of Economics, International Research Alliance for Sustainable Development (iRASD), vol. 3(1), pages 13-26, june.
    8. Wang, Zhixuan & Dong, Yanli & Liu, Ailan, 2022. "How does China's stock market react to supply chain disruptions from COVID-19?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    9. Tong, Yuan & Wan, Ning & Dai, Xingyu & Bi, Xiaoyi & Wang, Qunwei, 2022. "China's energy stock market jumps: To what extent does the COVID-19 pandemic play a part?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    10. Elżbieta Kacperska & Jakub Kraciuk, 2021. "Changes in the Stock Market of Food Industry Companies during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Comparative Analysis of Poland and Germany," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-17, November.
    11. Huynh, Toan Luu Duc & Foglia, Matteo & Doukas, John A., 2022. "COVID-19 and Tail-event Driven Network Risk in the Eurozone," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    12. Harjoto, Maretno Agus & Rossi, Fabrizio & Lee, Robert & Sergi, Bruno S., 2021. "How do equity markets react to COVID-19? Evidence from emerging and developed countries," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    13. Hashmi, Shabir Mohsin & Chang, Bisharat Hussain & Rong, Li, 2021. "Asymmetric effect of COVID-19 pandemic on E7 stock indices: Evidence from quantile-on-quantile regression approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    14. Ardiyono, Sulistiyo K., 2022. "Covid-19 pandemic, firms’ responses, and unemployment in the ASEAN-5," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 337-372.
    15. Bouteska, Ahmed & Sharif, Taimur & Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul, 2023. "COVID-19 and stock returns: Evidence from the Markov switching dependence approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Brada, Josef C. & Gajewski, Paweł & Kutan, Ali M., 2021. "Economic resiliency and recovery, lessons from the financial crisis for the COVID-19 pandemic: A regional perspective from Central and Eastern Europe," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    17. Nurudeen Abu & Awadh Ahmed Mohammed Gamal & Musa Abdullahi Sakanko & Ana Mateen & David Joseph & Ben-Obi Onyewuchi Amaechi, 2021. "How have COVID-19 Confirmed Cases and Deaths Affected Stock Markets? Evidence from Nigeria," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 15(1), February.
    18. Huang, Junbo & Tian, Huiting & Shen, Weibing, 2023. "Characteristics and mechanisms of the U.S. stock market spillover effects on the Chinese A-share market: Evidence from 6 A-share broad-based and 31 sector indices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    19. Clement Moyo & Izunna Anyikwa & Andrew Phiri, 2023. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Oil Market Returns: Has Market Efficiency Being Violated?," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(1), pages 118-127, January.
    20. Jialei Jiang & Eun-Mi Park & Seong-Taek Park, 2021. "The Impact of the COVID-19 on Economic Sustainability—A Case Study of Fluctuation in Stock Prices for China and South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-17, June.

    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:14:y:2022:i:2:p:852-:d:723215. 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.