The Intermediary Role of ESG Ratings in the Relation between the Issuance of Sustainability Reports and the Cost of Equity Capital

초록

The claimed association between the issuance of sustainability reports and the cost of equity capital does not hold for Korean listed companies. We propose two potential explanations for the muted association. First, the sustainability reports may not convey value-relevant information. Second, investors may not fully process unstructured sustainability information. We do not find a significant cross-sectional variation across corporate governance quality, rejecting the former. However, we find evidence that the issuance of sustainability reports decreases the cost of equity when supplemented with ESG ratings, supporting the latter. We conclude that ESG ratings facilitate investors processing of sustainability information.

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