How do carbon emissions and eco taxation affect the equity market performance: an empirical evidence from 28 OECD economies.

Abstract

This study examines the nexus between "stock returns," carbon emissions, and "environmental tax" in 28 OECD countries for the period 1994 to 2014. To this end, we employ second-generation econometric techniques that are robust to macroeconomic and financial datasets to eliminate the issues associated with heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. The "common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG)" and "augmented mean group (AMG)" estimators are a pioneering attempt to explore the association between the cross sections. These approaches take into account the complexities of real-world data and provide a more accurate understanding of the relationship between the variables. Several studies explored the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth. However, the literature lacks studies examining the impact of "environmental tax" implementation on "stock returns," which is a central policy instrument to curb emissions. The results demonstrate a significant and negative relationship between CO2 emissions and "stock market index returns" and a positive and significant relationship between "environmental tax" and "stock market index returns." Furthermore, both these relationships prevail in the world's biggest financial markets and second largest CO2 emitters, the USA. The empirical findings offer various useful implications for investors, policymakers, brokers, corporations, governmental pollution abatement institutions, and other stakeholders who wish to obtain a carbon risk premium.