Exeter Sustainable Finance Centre Seminar Series

1. Institutional investor networks and ESG performance: Evidence from China. Below is the abstract.

Abstract: This paper examines whether and how the network centrality of institutional investors affects firms’ sustainability development. Using data from the Chinese market, we find that central institutional investors in the social network significantly increase firms’ overall ESG performance. For the environmental, social, and governance pillars of ESG, we find that environmental performance is more likely to be driven by central institutional investors. We further show that central institutional investors act as active monitors and resource providers, enhancing firms’ ESG performance by improving corporate internal control quality, promoting the corporate information environment, alleviating financing constraints, and increasing green innovation capability. Furthermore, the relationship between centrality and ESG performance is considerably more pronounced for firms with political connections or under a high degree of industry competition but more diminished in periods of high economic policy uncertainty.

2. A pathway toward a sustainable economy: exploring the corporate green bond market

Abstract: Since 2007, the year of green bonds’ birth, this fixed-income instrument has gained importance among green financial instruments, and it’s been considered the most promising instrument to achieve a more sustainable economy. So, to contribute to a better understanding of corporate green bonds, we proposed three studies. In the first one, we performed a bibliometric analysis on this topic to make some order on the ongoing academic literature, drawing the specific trends in the corporate green bond market field of research. The second study will explore the development of the corporate green bond market in Brazil, presenting challenges and opportunities. And for the third study, we propose an analysis of the issuance of corporate green bonds in emerging economies and its impact on companies’ financial and ESG performances.