Researcher ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4119-1718
Graduation Year
2021
Date of Submission
11-2020
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
Eric Hughson
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2020 Rishi R Deva
OCLC Record Number
1242438937
Abstract
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) has seen a growing importance in the global economy with firms constantly evaluating ways to comply with rising standards of sustainability. Previous empirical work on ESG performance in the U.S. corporate debt market raises the question of how an intangible factor such as ESG is valued in the bond market, particularly in terms of the cost firms incur when issuing bonds. Using firm-specific and bond-specific data from a sample of 698 bond issuances in the United States between the 2015-2019 period, this paper finds a negative association between firm ESG performance and the cost of issuing corporate bonds. It also establishes this relationship to be linear across all levels of ESG performance, and significant only for investment grade bond issuers. As firms faring poorly in ESG are associated with paying higher risk premiums for corporate bonds, the findings suggest that stakeholders perceive firms with better ESG performance to be more creditworthy.
Recommended Citation
Deva, Rishi Raj, "The Effect of Firm ESG Performance on the Cost of Issuing Corporate Bonds in the U.S. Debt Market" (2021). CMC Senior Theses. 2547.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2547
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
