Bao, Li (2023) Three Essays on Green Finance. École Doctorale Sciences de Gestion TSM (Toulouse).

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Abstract

Firms are facing increasing expectations to address environmental issues, yet the conflicting goals of shareholder value-maximization and the costs of pollution prevention present significant challenges. This thesis explores two potential solutions: the long-term benefits of firms' early adoption of green practices and the preference of investors for green firms.The first chapter studies the long-term benefits that early adopters of green practices can obtain. Specifically, it investigates the impact of heightened enforcement of air pollution abatement regulations by local governments on the financial performance of Chinese listed firms. Using a two-stage least squares methodology, the study analyzes the impact of increased pollution control actions resulting from the transfer of monitoring station control rights from local governments to the central government. It compares the profitability of firms that implemented green practices early with those that did not. The findings reveal that firms with early green actions experience an increase in profitability, primarily attributed to reduced financial expenses. To further examine whether firms with early green actions can effectively manage and smooth the transition costs associated with adopting green practices in the initial years, the performances of firms with and without early green actions is tracked over time. The study discovers that their performances are similar until local governments intensify their enforcement efforts, and firms with early green actions outperform afterwards. The second chapter examines how stock and bond investors perceive firms' green status. Leveraging the Climate Bonds Initiative's three-tier verification system for green bonds, the study disentangles the influence of a company's green status and its issuance of green bonds. The analysis reveals that stock investors value a company's green status. The status is released to the market when a firm's green bond framework is verified or when it issues its first green bond if the framework is not verified. However, bond investors solely value certified green bonds and do not have a preference for other green bonds or conventional bonds issued by green firms. The third chapter investigates the growing trend of passive investors and their voting behavior during annual general meetings, aiming to shed light on their potential influence on green practices. While passive funds lack internal incentives to intervene in governance, external incentives from the same fund family's active funds may play a significant role. The study explores how active funds adjust their holdings based on passive funds' positions and how this affects voting patterns. Results show that active funds’ portfolios are affected by inflows of passive funds, while their own inflows do not have an impact. Moreover, when the product of passive and active funds’ ownership from the same fund family increases due to inflows of passive funds, both passive and active funds are more likely to vote against ISS recommendations.In summary, this thesis emphasizes the outperformance of firms with early green actions and highlights stock investors' preference for firms' green status. The findings contribute to the adoption of green practices in corporate decision-making.