IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/25310.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Investor Rewards to Climate Responsibility: Evidence from the 2016 Climate Policy Shock

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Ramelli
  • Alexander F. Wagner
  • Richard J. Zeckhauser
  • Alexandre Ziegler

Abstract

Donald Trump's election and his nomination of Scott Pruitt, a climate skeptic, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency drastically downshifted expectations on US climate-change policy. We study firms' stock-price reactions and institutional investors' portfolio adjustments after these events. As expected, carbon-intensive firms benefited. Should not companies with responsible strategies on climate change have lost value, since they were paying for actions that were now less urgent? In fact, investors actually rewarded such firms. The premium the firms received resulted, at least in part, from the move into climate-responsible stocks by long-horizon investors presumably expecting a post-Trump rebound to green policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Ramelli & Alexander F. Wagner & Richard J. Zeckhauser & Alexandre Ziegler, 2018. "Investor Rewards to Climate Responsibility: Evidence from the 2016 Climate Policy Shock," NBER Working Papers 25310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25310
    Note: CF EEE PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w25310.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Andreoni, 1995. "Warm-Glow versus Cold-Prickle: The Effects of Positive and Negative Framing on Cooperation in Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 1-21.
    2. Itzhak Ben-David & Francesco Franzoni & Rabih Moussawi & John Sedunov, 2021. "The Granular Nature of Large Institutional Investors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6629-6659, November.
    3. Hao Liang & Luc Renneboog, 2017. "On the Foundations of Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(2), pages 853-910, April.
    4. Jonathan B. Cohn & Stuart L. Gillan & Jay C. Hartzell, 2016. "On Enhancing Shareholder Control: A (Dodd-) Frank Assessment of Proxy Access," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1623-1668, August.
    5. Heinkel, Robert & Kraus, Alan & Zechner, Josef, 2001. "The Effect of Green Investment on Corporate Behavior," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 431-449, December.
    6. Arno Riedl & Paul Smeets, 2017. "Why Do Investors Hold Socially Responsible Mutual Funds?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(6), pages 2505-2550, December.
    7. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2010. "Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(305), pages 1-19, January.
    8. Ferrell, Allen & Liang, Hao & Renneboog, Luc, 2016. "Socially responsible firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 585-606.
    9. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 2000. "Forecasting Profitability and Earnings," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 161-175, April.
    10. Gaspar, Jose-Miguel & Massa, Massimo & Matos, Pedro, 2005. "Shareholder investment horizons and the market for corporate control," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 135-165, April.
    11. Hong, Harrison & Kostovetsky, Leonard, 2012. "Red and blue investing: Values and finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 1-19.
    12. Krüger, Philipp, 2015. "Corporate goodness and shareholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 304-329.
    13. Rajna Gibson & Philipp Krueger, 2017. "The Sustainability Footprint of Institutional Investors," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 17-05, Swiss Finance Institute.
    14. Fernando, Chitru S. & Sharfman, Mark P. & Uysal, Vahap B., 2017. "Corporate Environmental Policy and Shareholder Value: Following the Smart Money," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(5), pages 2023-2051, October.
    15. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    16. Philipp KRÜGER, 2015. "Climate Change and Firm Valuation: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 15-40, Swiss Finance Institute.
    17. Cristina Cella & Andrew Ellul & Mariassunta Giannetti, 2013. "Investors' Horizons and the Amplification of Market Shocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(7), pages 1607-1648.
    18. Galema, Rients & Plantinga, Auke & Scholtens, Bert, 2008. "The stocks at stake: Return and risk in socially responsible investment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2646-2654, December.
    19. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    20. Caroline Flammer, 2015. "Does Corporate Social Responsibility Lead to Superior Financial Performance? A Regression Discontinuity Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2549-2568, November.
    21. repec:oup:revfin:v:29:y:2016:i:12:p:3471-3518. is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Jawad M Addoum & David T Ng & Ariel Ortiz-Bobea & Harrison Hong, 2020. "Temperature Shocks and Establishment Sales," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(3), pages 1331-1366.
    23. Chung, Kee H. & Zhang, Hao, 2011. "Corporate Governance and Institutional Ownership," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 247-273, February.
    24. Bernstein, Asaf & Gustafson, Matthew T. & Lewis, Ryan, 2019. "Disaster on the horizon: The price effect of sea level rise," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 253-272.
    25. Mats Andersson & Patrick Bolton & Frédéric Samama, 2016. "Hedging Climate Risk," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(3), pages 13-32, May.
    26. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharftstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1992. "Herd on the Street: Informational Inefficiencies in a Market with Short-Term Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1461-1484, September.
    27. Philipp Krueger & Zacharias Sautner & Laura T Starks, 2020. "The Importance of Climate Risks for Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(3), pages 1067-1111.
    28. Dyck, Alexander & Lins, Karl V. & Roth, Lukas & Wagner, Hannes F., 2019. "Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 693-714.
    29. Markus Kitzmueller & Jay Shimshack, 2012. "Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 51-84, March.
    30. Wagner, Alexander F. & Zeckhauser, Richard J. & Ziegler, Alexandre, 2018. "Company stock price reactions to the 2016 election shock: Trump, taxes, and trade," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 428-451.
    31. Jawad M. Addoum & Alok Kumar, 2016. "Political Sentiment and Predictable Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(12), pages 3471-3518.
    32. Hong, Harrison & Kacperczyk, Marcin, 2009. "The price of sin: The effects of social norms on markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 15-36, July.
    33. Hong, Harrison & Li, Frank Weikai & Xu, Jiangmin, 2019. "Climate risks and market efficiency," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 208(1), pages 265-281.
    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. Barbara Annicchiarico & Stefano Carattini & Carolyn Fischer & Garth Heutel, 2022. "Business Cycles and Environmental Policy: A Primer," Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 221-253.
    2. Ni, Yinan & Sun, Yanfei, 2023. "Environmental, social, and governance premium in Chinese stock markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    3. Chung, Yessica C.Y. & Kunene, Noxolo & Chang, Hung-Hao, 2024. "Renewable energy certificates and firm value: Empirical evidence in Taiwan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    4. Carattini, Stefano & Sen, Suphi, 2019. "Carbon taxes and stranded assets: Evidence from Washington state," Economics Working Paper Series 1909, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    5. Gargallo, Pilar & Lample, Luis & Miguel, Jesús & Salvador, Manuel, 2022. "Dynamic comparison of portfolio risk: Clean vs dirty energy," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    6. Ehlers, Torsten & Packer, Frank & de Greiff, Kathrin, 2022. "The pricing of carbon risk in syndicated loans: Which risks are priced and why?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    7. David Ardia & Keven Bluteau & Kris Boudt & Koen Inghelbrecht, 2020. "Climate change concerns and the performance of green versus brown stocks," Working Paper Research 395, National Bank of Belgium.
    8. Lin, Boqiang & Zhao, Hengsong, 2023. "Tracking policy uncertainty under climate change," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Irene Monasterolo, 2020. "Embedding Finance in the Macroeconomics of Climate Change: Research Challenges and Opportunities Ahead," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 21(04), pages 25-32, November.

    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. Stefano Ramelli & Alexander F Wagner & Richard J Zeckhauser & Alexandre Ziegler, 2021. "Investor Rewards to Climate Responsibility: Stock-Price Responses to the Opposite Shocks of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Elections [Asset pricing with liquidity risk]," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 748-787.
    2. Liu, Xianda & Hou, Wenxuan & Main, Brian G.M., 2022. "Anti-market sentiment and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Po‐Hsuan Hsu & Kai Li & Chi‐Yang Tsou, 2023. "The Pollution Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1343-1392, June.
    4. Gillan, Stuart L. & Koch, Andrew & Starks, Laura T., 2021. "Firms and social responsibility: A review of ESG and CSR research in corporate finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Thomas J. Chemmanur & Dimitrios Gounopoulos & Panagiotis Koutroumpis & Yu Zhang, 2022. "CSR and Firm Survival: Evidence from the Climate and Pandemic Crises," Working Papers 935, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Chen, Tao & Dong, Hui & Lin, Chen, 2020. "Institutional shareholders and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 483-504.
    7. Roman Kräussl & Tobi Oladiran & Denitsa Stefanova, 2024. "A review on ESG investing: Investors’ expectations, beliefs and perceptions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 476-502, April.
    8. Marco Ceccarelli & Stefano Ramelli & Alexander F Wagner, 2024. "Low Carbon Mutual Funds," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 28(1), pages 45-74.
    9. Benjamin Lynch & Martha O'Hagan‐Luff, 2024. "Relative corporate social performance and cost of equity capital: International evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 2882-2910, July.
    10. Wenzhi Ding & Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Wensi Xie, 2022. "Competition laws, ownership, and corporate social responsibility," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(8), pages 1576-1602, October.
    11. Ralph De Haas & Alexander Popov, 2023. "Finance and Green Growth," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(650), pages 637-668.
    12. Shackleton, Mark & Yan, Jiali & Yao, Yaqiong, 2022. "What drives a firm's ES performance? Evidence from stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. Hans B. Christensen & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2021. "Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1176-1248, September.
    14. Pástor, Ľuboš & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2021. "Sustainable investing in equilibrium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 550-571.
    15. Nofsinger, John R. & Sulaeman, Johan & Varma, Abhishek, 2019. "Institutional investors and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 700-725.
    16. Gao, Feng & Li, Yubin & Wang, Xinjie & Zhong, Zhaodong (Ken), 2021. "Corporate social responsibility and the term structure of CDS spreads," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    17. Venturini, Alessio, 2022. "Climate change, risk factors and stock returns: A review of the literature," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Huang, Chenchen & Luo, Di & Mukherjee, Soumyatanu & Mishra, Tapas, 2022. "To Acquire or to Ally? Managing Partners’ Environmental Risk in International Expansion," MPRA Paper 121808, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Jan 2023.
    19. Ramelli, Stefano & Ossola, Elisa & Rancan, Michela, 2020. "Climate Sin Stocks: Stock Price Reactions to Global Climate Strikes," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2020-03, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    20. Hui-Ju Tsai & Yangru Wu, 2022. "Changes in Corporate Social Responsibility and Stock Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 735-755, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    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:25310. 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: 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.