Faculty & Research
Faculty & Research
- 2021
- Working Paper
Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement
By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
| We investigate whether ESG ratings predict future ESG news and the associated market reactions. We find that the consensus rating predicts future news, but its predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters. Relation between news and...
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- January 11, 2021
- Institutional Investor
Why ESG Funds Fail to Scale
By: Gabriel Karageorgiou and George Serafeim
| You’ve seen the headlines about the growth in environmental, social, and governance funds. Many investment professionals might read these and believe that launching a new ESG investment firm or ESG offering will be an automatic success. Our analysis of the data shows...
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- 11 Jan 2021
- Working Paper Summaries
Accounting for Product Impact in the Airlines Industry
by George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
| A systematic methodology for measuring product impact can be applied across a range of industries. Examining two competitor companies in the airlines industry, this study finds that analyzing each dimension of product impact allows for deeper understanding of each...
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- 05 Jan 2021
- Working Paper Summaries
The ESG-Innovation Disconnect: Evidence from Green Patenting
by Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun, and Quoc H. Nguyen
| Energy-producing firms are more likely to produce “blockbuster” green patents than other firms. Yet energy firms are excluded from many environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds, and are the targets of divestiture campaigns whose stated aims often include green...
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- December 2020
- Case
PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
| In early 2020, the California-based utility PG&E filed a second amended plan of reorganization. PG&E had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of more than $30 billion of legal claims brought against it for its alleged role in causing California wildfires. The...
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- 24 Nov 2020
- Working Paper Summaries
Accounting for Product Impact in the Consumer Finance Industry
by George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
| A framework and method for measuring and monetizing product impact across industries, applying it to two competitors in the consumer finance space.
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- November 2020
- Case
Holaluz: Taking on the Spanish Energy Market
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg, Elena Corsi and Emer Moloney
| In 2020, the three cofounders of Holaluz, a newcomer to Spain’s electricity retail market, is preparing to launch a new offering: installing and managing solar panels on households' roofs at no extra cost for the consumer, who would still benefit from the energy...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Accounting for Product Impact in the Airlines Industry
By: George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
| We apply the product impact measurement framework of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI) in two competitor companies within the airlines industry. We design a monetization methodology that allows us to calculate monetary impact estimates of fare...
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- 13 Nov 2020
- Working Paper Summaries
Long-Run Returns to Impact Investing in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies
by Shawn Cole, Martin Melecky, Florian Mölders, and Tristan Reed
| Examination of every equity investment made by the International Finance Corporation, one of the largest and longest-operating impact investors, shows this portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 by 15 percent.
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- 13 Nov 2020
- Working Paper Summaries
The European Commission’s Sustainable Corporate Governance Report: A Critique
by Mark Roe, Holger Spamann, Jesse Fried, and Charles Wang
| The European Commission commissioned a report on sustainable corporate governance that purports to find serious problems of corporate short-termism. The report is wholly flawed: it conflates time horizon problems with externality problems, mismeasures investment and...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Accounting for Product Impact in the Consumer Finance Industry
By: George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
| We apply the product impact measurement framework of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI) in two competitor credit card providers within the consumer finance industry. We design a monetization methodology that allows us to calculate monetary impact estimates...
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- 02 Nov 2020
- Working Paper Summaries
Accounting for Organizational Employment Impact
by David Freiberg, Katie Panella, George Serafeim, and T. Robert Zochowski
| Impact-weighted accounting methodology standardizes previously disparate measures of impact, in this case the impact of employment. This paper’s methodology and analysis of Intel, Apple, Costco, and Merck shows the feasibility of measuring firm employment impact for...
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