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  • What Drives a Firm’s ES Performance Evidence from Stock Returns

    Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Banking & Finance. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Banking & Finance, 136, 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2021.106304

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    Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

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What Drives a Firm's ES Performance?: Evidence from Stock Returns

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Published
Article number106304
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>31/03/2022
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Banking and Finance
Volume136
Number of pages19
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date5/09/21
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This study empirically explores the dynamic relation between the environmental and social (ES) performance of a firm and its stock market returns. We find robust evidence that worse stock market performance increases firms’ efforts on ES activities. Specifically, firms are more likely to improve their product and diversity performance and enhance their ES strengths rather than reduce ES concerns after poor stock market performance. This finding that poor stock market performance precedes enhanced ES performance is present (i) in firms with more financial slack, (ii) in firms with higher customer awareness, (iii) during the post-financial crisis period, and (iv) when a firm's shareholder activism on ES issues is intense. Our results underscore the importance of stock market performance in corporate ES decisions.

Bibliographic note

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Banking & Finance. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Banking & Finance, 136, 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2021.106304