Voice Through Divestment

Marco Becht, Anete Pajuste and Anna Toniolo

No 18328, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: A common argument against divestment is that it discards voting power and has a small effect on stock prices. We argue that divestment is a statement of disapproval that aligns actions with words for effectiveness. We show that the Go Fossil Free divestment movement is a narrative with impact. Viral divestment pledges depressed the share prices of all high carbon emitters, including those with no divestment. Peak virality coincided with a concurrent rise in the carbon premium and preceded net-zero commitments. The introduction of these commitments effectively recast divestment from a moral statement to a strategic exercise in risk management.

Keywords: Divestment; Climate finance; Carbon emissions; Narratives; Twitter; Fossil fuel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 G32 G34 K22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18328 (application/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:cpr:ceprdp:18328

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18328

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().