IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30562.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

ESG Confusion and Stock Returns: Tackling the Problem of Noise

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Berg
  • Julian F. Koelbel
  • Anna Pavlova
  • Roberto Rigobon

Abstract

Existing measures of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance ESG ratings are noisy and, therefore, standard regression estimates of the effect of ESG performance on stock returns are biased. Addressing this as a classical errors-in-variables problem, we develop a noise-correction procedure in which we instrument ESG ratings with ratings of other ESG rating agencies. With this procedure, the median increase in the regression coefficients is a factor of 2.1. The results are similar when we use accounting profitability measures as outcome variables. In simulations, our noise-correction procedure outperforms alternative approaches such as simple averages or principal component analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Berg & Julian F. Koelbel & Anna Pavlova & Roberto Rigobon, 2022. "ESG Confusion and Stock Returns: Tackling the Problem of Noise," NBER Working Papers 30562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30562
    Note: AP EEE IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w30562.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Koji Takahashi & Sumiko Takaoka, 2023. "How much do firms need to satisfy employees? - Evidence from credit spreads and online employee reviews," BIS Working Papers 1111, Bank for International Settlements.
    2. Xuming Shangguan & Gengyan Shi & Zhou Yu, 2024. "ESG Performance and Enterprise Value in China: A Novel Approach via a Regulated Intermediary Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Jin, Yurong & Yan, Jingzhou & Yan, Qianhui, 2024. "Unraveling ESG Ambiguity, Price Reaction, and Trading Volume," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Rojo-Suárez, Javier & Alonso-Conde, Ana B. & Gonzalez-Ruiz, Juan David, 2024. "Does sustainability improve financial performance? An analysis of Latin American oil and gas firms," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Wang, Xinyu & Zhao, Jing, 2023. "The green reputation: Corporate culture and environmental reputation risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    6. Luo, Deqing & Shan, Xun & Yan, Jingzhou & Yan, Qianhui, 2023. "Sustainable investment under ESG volatility and ambiguity," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    7. Gianluca Gucciardi & Elisa Ossola & Lucia Parisio & Matteo Pelagatti, 2024. "Common factors behind companies' Environmental ratings," Working Papers 536, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.
    8. Long, Huaigang & Chiah, Mardy & Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin, 2024. "ESG investing in good and bad times: An international study," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    9. Jin, Yurong & Yan, Jingzhou, 2024. "Sustainable investing with ESG ambiguous information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    10. Serge Darolles & Yuyi He & Gaëlle Le Fol, 2024. "Understanding the effect of ESG scores on stock returns using mediation theory," Post-Print hal-04594004, HAL.
    11. Li, Hao & Guo, Hui & Hao, Xinyao & Zhang, Xuan, 2023. "The ESG rating, spillover of ESG ratings, and stock return: Evidence from Chinese listed firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Yikai Zhao & Jun Nagayasu & Xinyi Geng, 2024. "Measuring Climate Policy Uncertainty with LLMs: New Insights into Corporate Bond Credit Spreads," DSSR Discussion Papers 143, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    13. Michele Costa, 2023. "The evaluation of the effects of ESG scores on financial markets," Working Papers wp1189, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:30562. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.