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Exeter Sustainable Finance Centre (ESF) Seminar with Professor Bert Scholtens

ESF Seminar Sessions Spring 2024

ESF Seminar Sessions Spring 2024


Event details

Abstract

Abstract: Corporate Sustainability, Cost of Equity, and Credit Ratings.
Using an up-to-date international sample of firms, we study whether corporate sustainability (proxied by ESG ratings), influences a company’s cost of equity and whether Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) incorporate such an impact in their credit risk assessments. We show that higher ESG performance reduces the cost of equity due to a reduction in ESG risk. This also holds after decomposing the ESG rating into its single-dimensions. Second, we show that CRAs do not incorporate such risk reduction into their credit risk assessments. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns and the use of two ESG rating providers. They can help guide policies that focus on rating agencies as a potential tool to address ESG concerns.

Dalò, Ambrogio and Mees, Roland and Scholtens, L.J.R. (Bert) and Zhao, Hanqi, Corporate Sustainability, Cost of Equity, and Credit Ratings. (October 5, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4593163 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4593163

We're excited to announce the upcoming Exeter Sustainable Finance Centre (ESF) Seminar Sessions for this Spring 2024 term. I’d like to invite you to join the next ESF seminar on Tuesday, 13:30pm -15:00pm on the 19th of March 2024.

Prof. Bert Scholtens will visit us and present his work Corporate Sustainability, Cost of Equity, and Credit Ratings. Bert Scholtens is professor in Sustainable Banking and Finance at the Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Furthermore, he is a Finance Professor at the School of Management of the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, UK, and visiting Professors of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). His research is directed at international financial intermediation and environmental finance and economics.

Location:

Building:One Constantine LeventisTeaching Room