IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v47y2026i2p81-102.html

Why Do Firms Issue Green Bonds?

Author

Listed:
  • Julien Daubanes
  • Shema Mitali
  • Jean-Charles Rochet

Abstract

Corporate green bond announcements generate positive abnormal stock returns. We suggest this might be because managers use green bonds to signal the profitability of the climate-friendly projects they finance. First, we build a signaling model of green bond issuance. It predicts that firms’ incentives to decarbonize are amplified by the interest of their managers in their stock price. Second, we provide supporting empirical evidence, using cross-country variations in effective carbon prices, and cross-industry differences in the stock-price sensitivity of managers’ compensation. Our results suggest that green bonds are not substitutes for but rather complements to carbon pricing. JEL Classification: D53; H23; G14; Q54

Suggested Citation

  • Julien Daubanes & Shema Mitali & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2026. "Why Do Firms Issue Green Bonds?," The Energy Journal, , vol. 47(2), pages 81-102, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:47:y:2026:i:2:p:81-102
    DOI: 10.1177/01956574251366200
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01956574251366200
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/01956574251366200?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. John Caramichael & Andreas Rapp, 2022. "The Green Corporate Bond Issuance Premium," International Finance Discussion Papers 1346, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Ashraf, Sania & Karim, Sitara & Moussa, Faten, 2024. "Green finance under stress: Unraveling the spillover effects of tail risk," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 225-236.
    4. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline & Mouez Fodha, 2023. "Debt, tax and environmental policy [Dette, taxe et politique environnementale]," Post-Print halshs-04181981, HAL.
    5. Bongaerts, Dion & Schoenmaker, Dirk, 2024. "Liquidity and clientele effects in green debt markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    6. Caramichael, John & Rapp, Andreas C., 2024. "The green corporate bond issuance premium," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    7. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline & Mouez Fodha, 2023. "Dette, taxe et politique environnementale," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 55-106.
    8. ElBannan, Mona A. & Löffler, Gunter, 2024. "How effectively do green bonds help the environment?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    9. Rébecca Cardot & Carole Bernard & Jamil Jaballah, 2026. "Green bonds & certification: is getting certified always optimal?," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 356(1), pages 601-628, January.
    10. Becker, Annette & Fatica, Serena & Rancan, Michela, 2025. "Not only green: Sustainability and debt capital markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:sae:enejou:v:47:y:2026:i:2:p:81-102. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.