RT journal article
T1 Shareholder Activism on Climate Change: Evolution, Determinants, and Consequences
A1 Diaz Rainey, Ivan
A1 Griffin, Paul A.
A1 Lont, David H.
A1 Mateo Márquez, Antonio Jesús
A1 Zamora Ramirez, Constancio
A2 Economía Financiera y Contabilidad
K1 Climate action
K1 Shareholder proposals
K1 Ethical shareholders
K1 Market response
AB We study 944 shareholder proposals submitted to 343 U.S. frms on climate change issues during 2009–2022. We use logistic and two-stage regression to estimate the propensity for a frm to be targeted or subjected to a vote at the annual generalmeeting and, for voted proposals, the determinants of that vote. We also examine whether climate-related proposals afectinvestor returns and how they relate to frms’ future environmental performance and greenhouse gas emissions. Comparedto a matched sample, we frst fnd that activists target larger, more carbon-intensive, and less R&D-active frms. Second,voting likelihood is higher for frms with repeated and operations-related proposals and lower pre-proposal environmentalratings. By contrast, disclosure-related proposals are likelier to be negotiated and withdrawn. Third, repeated and operationsrelated proposals receive higher votes in favor, whereas votes on carbon-intensive frms do not. Fourth, building on thetheory that investors act as if they distinguish among the diferent shareholder proposals based on the expected cost to thefrm, we fnd evidence to support this idea. We fnd that investors respond negatively to ex-ante costlier proposals, such asthose that relate to emissions reduction and target carbon-intensive frms. Fifth, targets’ future environmental performancerating is almost twenty percent higher after a proposal than before compared to the matched sample, whereas emissions donot budge appreciably.
PB Springer
SN 0167-4544
YR 2023
FD 2023-09-04
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/31351
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/31351
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 20-may-2026