 The contributions of betas versus characteristics to the ESG premiumRocco Ciciretti, Ambrogio Dalò and Lammertjan Dam Journal of Empirical Finance, 2023, vol. 71, issue C, 104-124 Abstract: Firms that score high on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators exhibit lower expected returns. This negative ESG premium might be driven by the lower risk associated with high ESG scores (betas), or it could signal investors’ preferences for firms with high ESG scores (characteristics). We show that ESG as a characteristic mainly drives the premium. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the ESG characteristic is associated with a decrease in expected returns of 2.73% annually. In addition, the ESG characteristic explains a higher proportion of the cross-sectional variation in expected returns compared to ESG betas. We further caution for the presence of an ESG bias within the ESG premium that is due to positive realized returns preceding lower long-term expected returns. When correcting our estimates for the ESG bias the decrease in expected returns turns out to be 3.41% on an annual basis. The ESG bias correction, together with a firm-level methodology, can help clarify the mixed findings documented in the literature. Keywords: Socially responsible investment; ESG premium; EIV correction (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:empfin:v:71:y:2023:i:c:p:104-124 DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2023.01.004 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Empirical Finance is currently edited by R. T. Baillie, F. C. Palm, Th. J. Vermaelen and C. C. P. Wolff More articles in Journal of Empirical Finance from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.