The Impact of Climate Change Information: New Evidence from the Stock Market

On June 19, 2007, a non-profit organization released ratings of companies' plans for measuring, reporting, and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. We explore the capital market impacts of this information event. In contrast to much of the related literature, our study examines climate change information and a plausibly exogenous event. We find that the information had an economically important and statistically significant impact on capital market returns. Poorly rated firms suffered market penalties. In contrast, we find limited benefits for firms receiving good ratings. We also uncover suggestive evidence that the economic mechanism driving our results is not a direct consumer demand effect.