Initial Coin Offerings: can ESG mitigate Underpricing?

Alessandro Bitetto () and Paola Cerchiello ()
Additional contact information
Alessandro Bitetto: University of Pavia
Paola Cerchiello: University of Pavia

No 221, DEM Working Papers Series from University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management

Abstract: Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have emerged as a novel way of start-up funding based on blockchain technology and this paper aims to explain the nexus between ICOs business purposes and underpricing, i.e. when the price of the offered token is lower than the one traded on the market. In particular, we focus on the impact of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) pillars on the ICOs' underpricing. Therefore, we built up a wide and comprehensive dataset comprising $\sim8000$ ICOs spanning from 2015 through 2023, containing both technical and financial information. Moreover, we assessed an ESG score using AI-based textual analysis performed over the whitepapers. The main results show that a higher ESG orientation leads to less underpricing, especially in the early trading days. Our findings may represent a useful support to an enhanced and reliable decision-making process.

Keywords: Initial coin offering (ICO); ESG; Text analysis; Underpricing. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2024-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-env and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://economiaemanagement.dip.unipv.it/sites/dip10/files/2024-07/DEMWP0221.pdf

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:pav:demwpp:demwp0221

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DEM Working Papers Series from University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alice Albonico ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).