Volume 64, Issue 5 pp. 4619-4646
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Learning ESG from stock prices: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Zeyuan Huang

Zeyuan Huang

The School of Management, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

Search for more papers by this author
Yi Si

Corresponding Author

Yi Si

The School of Management, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

Correspondence

Yi Si, No. 28 Xianning West Road, Xi'an, China.

Email: [email protected]

Chongwu Xia, 463 Clementi Road, Singapore.

Email: [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
Gaoliang Tian

Gaoliang Tian

The School of Management, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

Search for more papers by this author
Chongwu Xia

Corresponding Author

Chongwu Xia

School of Business, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore, Singapore

Correspondence

Yi Si, No. 28 Xianning West Road, Xi'an, China.

Email: [email protected]

Chongwu Xia, 463 Clementi Road, Singapore.

Email: [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
Lei Zhang

Lei Zhang

College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 23 June 2024

Authors are listed alphabetically by the first letter of their last names.

All the authors have contributed equally to this paper.

Abstract

This study examines the impact of stock market liberalisation on managerial environmental, social and governance (ESG) learning from stock prices. Using a quasi-natural experiment, specifically the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SHHKC) and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SZHKC), we find that stock market liberalisation enhances firms' ESG expenditure sensitivity to stock prices, implying that managers extract greater amounts of ESG information from stock prices. Additionally, the mechanism test shows that liberalisation influences managerial learning by enabling stock prices to incorporate foreign investors' private ESG information at both aggregated and granular levels. Moreover, we demonstrate the specific ESG information that managers acquire from stock prices. We also find that the learning effects are stronger for firms in polluting industries, without ESG-proficient managers, and without access to alternative learning channels, lending further support to managerial ESG learning from stock prices. Finally, we demonstrate that the increase in ESG expenditure leads to subsequent ESG performance improvement. Our findings provide the managerial implication that managers under transformation pressure may seek information from ESG-related stock price reactions.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data source is publicly available. The data is available upon request.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.