Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Essays On Green Finance, Elsa Allman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1: Pricing Climate Change Risk in Corporate Bonds

Using a firm’s geographic footprint to measure its exposure to sea level rise (SLR), I find that corporate bonds bear a climate risk premium upon issuance. A one standard deviation increase in firms’ SLR exposure is associated with a 7 basis point premium, representing a 3% increase in average yield spread. This effect is more pronounced for geographically concentrated firms, within industries vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, and after the Paris Agreement. I do not find evidence that credit rating agencies account for SLR exposure at bond issuance. Results are robust …

Essays On Corporate Sustainability, Aditya Malateesh Kashikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation provides an extensive literature review of topics in Corporate Sustainability. It further examines two key topics: ESG Pay and ESG Investing. For ESG Pay, I examine Bloomberg’s ESG linked pay measure using the largest panel (to date). I confirm several important results from the nascent literature on ESG Pay. Firstly, I find that Country and Industry play a major role in determining ESG Pay adoption. Secondly, among firm characteristics, Big and Value firms tend to have a greater probability of adopting ESG Pay. Thirdly, higher ESG scores increase the chance of ESG Pay adoption in the subsequent year. …