Environmental, social and governance performance: Can it be a stock price stabilizer?

Abstract

ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is gradually becoming one of the essential indicators for evaluating companies. This paper empirically tested the impact of corporate ESG performance on the stock price crash risk. We discover that the better the ESG performance, the lower the likelihood of a stock price crash. These findings remain after a series of robustness tests such as replacing variables, changing parameter estimation methods, controlling for exogenous shocks, propensity score matching and instrumental variables. Corporate ESG performance mitigates stock price crash risk by boosting green investor attention, improving analyst competency, and reining management behavior. The effect of ESG performance on stock price crash risk is more significant when the city where the firm is located pays less attention to environmental protection and the large degree of marketization. Compared with the central region of China, the ESG performance of firms in the eastern and western regions has a more significant role in mitigating stock price crash risk.