IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v74y2025ics0275531924004951.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A legal origins perspective on ESG rating disagreement

Author

Listed:
  • Kurbus, Barbara
  • Rant, Vasja

Abstract

Firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores vary significantly across rating providers. This article considers the legal origins theory as a potential factor influencing ESG rating disagreement. By comparing ESG scores from five reputable rating providers – Bloomberg, S&P Global, LSEG, MSCI, and Sustainalytics – for a sample of 2392 public firms incorporated across 53 countries, we find that correlation disagreement between rating providers is lower for civil law firms, while dispersion disagreement across rating providers is lower for common law firms. This suggests, firstly, that civil law firms are influenced more by shared factors such as national policies, regulations and industry practices, leading to higher correlations in ESG scores between rating providers, and secondly, that common law firms engage in more independent and firm-specific ESG efforts, resulting in lower ESG dispersion across rating providers.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurbus, Barbara & Rant, Vasja, 2025. "A legal origins perspective on ESG rating disagreement," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:74:y:2025:i:c:s0275531924004951
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531924004951
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102702?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 search for a different version of it.

    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:riibaf:v:74:y:2025:i:c:s0275531924004951. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ribaf .

    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.