Business Commons^™

Consumers’ Reaction To Corporate Esg Performance: Evidence From Store Visits, Frank Weikai Li, Frank Weikai Li, Roni Michaely

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using micro-level data on consumer shopping behavior, this paper investigates end-consumers’ attitudes toward firms’ ESG behavior, and as importantly, the ability of consumers to affect firms’ policy concerning sustainability issues. We find that consumers care about firms’ approach toward ESG, and consumers’ behavior can impact firms’ attitudes. Using ESG incidents as a proxy, we find that the reduction in store visits is more pronounced for ESG-conscious consumers, such as those living in democratic counties, and counties with a higher fraction of educated and younger residents. Online shopping interest data yields similar results. Using abnormally hot temperature as a shock to …

Responsible Hedge Funds, Hao Liang, Lin Sun, Song Wee Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Hedge funds that endorse the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) underperform other hedge funds after adjusting for risk but attract greater investor flows, accumulate more assets, and harvest greater fee revenues. Consistent with an agency explanation, the underperformance is driven by PRI signatories with low environmental, social, and governance (ESG) exposures and is greater for hedge funds with poor incentive alignment. To address endogeneity, we exploit regulatory reforms that enhance stewardship and show that the ESG exposure and relative performance of signatory funds improve post reforms. Our findings suggest that some hedge funds endorse responsible investment to pander …

Esg And The Market Return, Ran Chang, Liya Chu, Jun Tu, Bohui Zhang, Guofu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) index. We find that it has significant power in predicting the stock market risk premium, both in- and out-of-sample, and delivers sizable economic gains for mean-variance investors in asset allocation. Although the index is extracted by using the PLS method, its predictability is robust to using alternative machine learning tools. We find further that the aggregate of environmental variables captures short-term forecasting power, while that of social or governance captures long-term. The predictive power of the ESG index stems from both cash flow and discount rate channels.

Greenwashing: Evidence From Hedge Funds, Hao Liang, Lin Sun, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We find that a non-trivial number of hedge funds that endorse the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment indulge in greenwashing. Hedge funds that greenwash underperform both genuinely green and nongreen funds after adjusting for risk. Consistent with an agency explanation, greenwashers (i) underperform more when incentive alignment is poor, (ii) trigger more regulatory violations, and (iii) report more suspicious returns. By exploiting regulatory reforms that aim to enhance stewardship and curb greenwashing, we provide causal evidence that relates agency problems to greenwashing and fund underperformance. Investors, however, do not appear to discriminate between greenwashers and genuinely green funds.

Corporate Social Responsibility And Sustainable Finance: A Review Of The Literature, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to the incorporation of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations into corporate management, financial decision making, and investors’ portfolio decisions. Socially responsible firms are expected to internalize the externalities (e.g. pollution) they create, and are willing to be accountable to shareholders as well as a broader group of stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, local communities,…). Over the past two decades, various rating agencies developed firm-level measures of ESG performance, which are widely used in the literature. A problem for past and a challenge for future research is that these ratings show inconsistencies, which depend on the …

The Global Sustainability Footprint Of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the emergence of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) around the world managing equity of over $8 trillion, their impact on the corporate landscape and social welfare is being scrutinized. This study investigates whether and how SWFs incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations in their investment decisions in publicly listed corporations, as well as the subsequent evolution of target firms' ESG performance. We find that SWF funds do consider the level of past ESG performance as well as recent ESG score improvement when taking ownership stakes in listed companies. These results are driven by the SWF funds that do have …

Dbs Impact Measurement Project: Technical Review, Hao Liang, Phuong Tran Bao Nguyen, David Fernandez, Jun Ho Park

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The measurement of ESG and its impact is becoming one of the more important and debated issues in sustainable business practice, with the significant challenges being the subjectivity of scope, criteria, as well as lack of consistency across different rating agencies and data providers

Impact measurement goes beyond ESG measurement. Apart from qualitative and input-based approach, it encapsulates a more outcome/impact-based approach, supported with quantitative methods

Impact measurement and valuation are still at the infant stage, with limited research and guidelines, thus [Impact Institute] II’s approach has significant novelty and is among the first to measure and value impact

II …

Aiming For Average: The Effect Of Peer Standing On The Dynamic Process Of Corporate Social Responsibility, Kuan Yong David Ding, Christo Ferreira, Wongchoti Udomsak

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We evidence a non-linear relationship between firm value and corporate social responsibility, adding to the mixed evidence on this relationship. We show that corporate social responsibility exhibits a dynamic process, which is largely dependent on a firm’s industry, relative standing amongst peers and the distinction between responsible and irresponsible behavior. Surprisingly, we find that responsible behavior could sometimes destroy firm value, while irresponsible behavior could sometimes increase firm value. Endogeneity is mitigated through a novel process that allows us to keep constant the endogeneity inherent in this field, examining corporate social responsibility’s effect on firm value separately.