On the legal foundations of green bonds

Mohammed Benlemlih, Imane El Ouadghiri, Jamil Jaballah and Jonathan Peillex
Additional contact information
Mohammed Benlemlih: Métis Lab EM Normandie - EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie = EM Normandie Business School
Imane El Ouadghiri: PULV - Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci
Jamil Jaballah: EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management
Jonathan Peillex: ICD International Business School Paris, LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper presents one of the first systematic analyses of the legal foundations of green bond issuance. We find that French and Scandinavian civil law origins are positively associated with green bond issuance, whereas English common law origin is negatively associated. These results are robust across alternative measures of green bond issuance, and two quasi-natural experiments. We further show that stronger creditor-rights protection (consistent with stakeholder theory) significantly enhances green bond issuance, while greater financial liberalization (consistent with financial liberalization theory) significantly reduces it. Finally, we find that the positive impact of green bond issuance on renewable energy generation and environmental project financing is stronger under French, Scandinavian, and German civil law origins, and weaker under English common law. Taken together, these findings contribute to debates on firms' ethical responsibilities in addressing climate change and carbon dioxide emissions, and highlight the critical role of legal systems in financing the climate transition.

Keywords: Financial liberalization; Green bond; Legal origins; Renewable energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Environmental Management, 2026, 398, pp.128556. ⟨10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.128556⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05448972

DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.128556

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().