Divestment and Engagement: The Effect of Green Investors on Corporate Carbon Emissions
SSRN Electronic Journal
2024
- 4Citations
- 3,375Usage
- 12Captures
- 2Mentions
Metric Options: CountsSelecting the 1-year or 3-year option will change the metrics count to percentiles, illustrating how an article or review compares to other articles or reviews within the selected time period in the same journal. Selecting the 1-year option compares the metrics against other articles/reviews that were also published in the same calendar year. Selecting the 3-year option compares the metrics against other articles/reviews that were also published in the same calendar year plus the two years prior.
Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
Citation Benchmarking is provided by Scopus and SciVal and is different from the metrics context provided by PlumX Metrics.
Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
Citation Benchmarking is provided by Scopus and SciVal and is different from the metrics context provided by PlumX Metrics.
Most Recent News
Investors Should Engage With Firms They Want To Go Green, Not Divest
How can investors use capital markets to encourage emissions reductions? In new research, Matthew E. Kahn, John G. Matsusaka, and Chong Shu examine whether public
Article Description
This paper investigates whether green investors can influence corporate greenhouse gas emissions through capital markets, and if so, whether the effect is larger from divesting polluters’ stock in order to limit their access to capital, or acquiring polluters’ stock and engaging with management as owners. We focus on public pension funds, classifying them as green or nongreen based on which political party controlled the fund. To isolate the causal effects of green ownership, we use exogenous variation caused by state-level politics that shifted control of the funds, and portfolio rebalancing in response to returns from non-equity investment. Our main finding is that companies reduced their greenhouse gas emissions when stock ownership by green funds increased and did not alter or increased their emissions when ownership by nongreen funds increased. Other evidence based on proxy voting, shareholder proposals, and activist pension funds suggests that ownership mattered because of active engagement by green investors, and through attempts to persuade more than voting pressure. We do not find that companies with green investors were more likely to sell off their high-emission facilities (greenwashing). Overall, our findings suggest that (a) corporate managers respond to the environmental preferences of their investors; (b) divestment of polluting companies may lead to greater emissions; and (c) private markets may be able to partially address environmental challenges independent of government regulation.
Bibliographic Details
Provide Feedback
Have ideas for a new metric? Would you like to see something else here?Let us know