Media Attention to Environmental Issues and ESG Investing

Balazs J. Csillag (), Marcell P. Granat () and Gabor Neszveda
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Balazs J. Csillag: John von Neumann University
Marcell P. Granat: Magyar Nemzeti Bank

Financial and Economic Review, 2022, vol. 21, issue 4, 129-149

Abstract: We analyse how ESG scores affect future returns when environmental issues receive higher media coverage. Investors might take environmental aspects into account if they are confronted with the issue of global warming more frequently in the press. We assess the prevalence of environmental issues in the media with a machine learning-based Structural Topic Modelling (STM) methodology, using a news archive published in the USA. Running Fama-MacBeth regressions, we find that in periods when the media actively report on environmental issues, ESG scores have a significant negative impact on future returns, whereas, in months when fewer such articles are published, investors do not take sustainability measures into account, and ESG scores have no explanatory power.

Keywords: ESG; environmental issues; investors' attention; Structural Topic Model; Fama-MacBeth regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C55 G12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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