دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی تأثیر افشای زیست محیطی، اجتماعی و حکومتی بر ارزش شرکت - الزویر 2018

Abstract

Using a large cross-sectional dataset comprising of FTSE 350 listed firms, this study investigates whether superior environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) disclosure affects firm value. We find a positive association between ESG disclosure level and firm value, suggesting that improved transparency and accountability and enhanced stakeholder trust play a role in boosting firm value. We also report that higher CEO power enhances the ESG disclosure effect on firm value, indicating that stakeholders associate ESG disclosure from firms with higher CEO power with greater commitment to ESG practice. This evidence is strong and consistent for three different measures of ESG-related disclosure: the ESG, environmental and social disclosure scores. The results are robust to the use of an instrumental variable approach, and the Heckman two-stage estimation procedure.

Conclusion and limitations

We investigate in this paper whether superior ESG disclosure affects firm value by using a large sample of UK public firms from the Bloomberg database over the period 2004-2013. We document that the ESG disclosure level is positively associated with firm value, and find that the interaction between higher CEO power and ESG disclosure is positively related to firm value. This evidence is strong and consistent for three different measures of ESG-related disclosure, i.e., the ESG, environmental, and social disclosure scores. Our results hold when we use two different financial measures, i.e., Tobin’s Q and ROA, an IV approach, and the Heckman (1979) two-stage estimation approach. Our findings suggest that ESG disclosures can enhance firm value through improved transparency and accountability, and enhanced stakeholder trust. In addition, the association between ESG disclosure level and firm value is more pronounced when CEO power is greater, indicating that shareholders treat ESG disclosure from firms with higher CEO power as associated with greater commitment to ESG practice. A variety of studies has suggested that the CEO is able to influence information and disclosure policy. These include Goldman & Slezak (2006), Singh (2006), and Axelson & Baliga (2009). Since disclosure quality reflects the executives’ ability to appreciate the underlying competitive environment and effectively anticipate future outcomes, higher disclosure quality could signal their ability to enhance firm value (Hui & Matsunaga, 2015).