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ESG ratings, monetary policy uncertainty, and bond issuance premium

  • Green Development and Environmental Policy in China: Past, Current and Future
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Abstract

Existing studies generally recognize the critical role played by macro monetary policy, of which the uncertainty will increase corporate bond issuance premiums at a micro level. However, relatively little is known about these relationships from the perspective of non-financial information in the corporation. So this study sets out to do further exploration. We use the database to obtain information, including the bond issuance of A-share listed corporations in China from 2015 to 2020. The findings suggest that high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings from listed corporations significantly weaken the positive correlation between monetary policy uncertainty and bond issuance premiums. Specifically, it has a positive information pricing effect on China’s primary debt issuance market, as well as a mitigating impact on macro-financial policy risk. We also find, through further mechanistic studies, that ESG ratings are more helpful in undermining the impact of monetary policy uncertainty on bond issuance premiums in the context of higher financial information quality. Our findings are conducive to enriching the research framework of the economic consequences of ESG ratings, meaningfully influencing the growing literature that exposed the mechanism of bond issuance premiums, and further, verifying the interaction of information at different levels (macro vs micro) in asset pricing.

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Funding

This work was supported by [National Natural Science Foundation of China] (Grant numbers [71702001]), [National Social Science Foundation of China] (Grant numbers [21BGL097]), [University Collaborative Innovation Foundation of Anhui Province] (Grant numbers [GXXT-2021–078]), [University Research Projects in Anhui Province] (Grant numbers [SK2021A0240]).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Accountancy, Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, China

    Chunqiang Zhang, Lu Gao, Wenbing Wang & Dayu Hao

  2. School of Accounting, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China

    Qinwen Wang

Authors
  1. Chunqiang Zhang
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  2. Lu Gao
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  3. Wenbing Wang
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  4. Dayu Hao
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  5. Qinwen Wang
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Contributions

This proposal of research article was written only by the five aforementioned authors, i.e., Chunqiang Zhang (CZ), Lu Gao (LG), Wenbing Wang (WW), Dayu Hao (DH), and Qinwen Wang (QW). More in detail, CZ conducted funding acquisition and methodology. LG conducted a formal analysis. WW and DH lead the data curation and literature review. QW leads the writing and the review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qinwen Wang.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 10

Table 10 Definitions of environmental performance variables
Full size table

Table 11

Table 11 Definitions of social responsibility performance variables
Full size table

Table 12

Table 12 Definitions of corporate governance performance variables
Full size table

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Zhang, C., Gao, L., Wang, W. et al. ESG ratings, monetary policy uncertainty, and bond issuance premium. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 10071–10085 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24719-6

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