Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 21st Apr 2025, 08:51:38am CEST
Socially responsible investing and multinationals' pollution: Evidence from global remote sensing data
Virginia Gianinazzi, Victoire Girard, Mehdi Lehlali, Melissa Prado
Universidade Nova de Lisboa Nova SBE, Portugal
Discussant: Matilde Faralli (Imperial College London)
This paper investigates the impact of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) capital on the polluting practices of industrial Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) across all their facilities. We leverage the inverse relation between local pollution and high-frequency satellite-based measurements of local vegetation health through the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Our empirical analysis encompasses a comprehensive dataset of 911 parent companies and 52,806 establishments worldwide. We estimate how the within cell panel variation in NDVI relates to changes in SRI ownership and document an overall positive association between SRI ownership of a company and the NDVI around the company’s establishments. However, this improvement is limited to facilities located within OECD countries. These heterogeneous findings underscore the importance of considering the global nature of MNEs when evaluating sustainability efforts.
The Economics of Greenwashing Funds
Prof. Sean Cao1, Prof. Yong Chen2, Prof. Han Xiao3, Prof. Alan Zhang4
1University of Maryland; 2Texas A&M University; 3Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen; 4Florida International University
Discussant: Elise Gourier (ESSEC Business School)
This paper examines the benefits and costs of greenwashing in mutual funds. We first identify greenwashing funds by using large language models (LLM) to analyze fund reports along with sustainability ratings. Exploring the economic incentives behind greenwashing, we find that such funds charge higher expenses, attract greater fund flows, and face lower investor sensitivity to poor performance. However, greenwashing funds are also more likely to receive ESG-related comment letters from the SEC, which subsequently lead to net fund outflows. Furthermore, there exists heterogeneity in how institutional and retail investors respond to greenwashing.
