Corporate Green Bond and Stock Price Reaction

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the investors’ reaction to environmental actions taken by companies such as the issues of “green bond”. We conduct an event study around the announcement of green bond issuances for all publicly traded companies in the World in the period 2013-2019 (the largest period in literature on this field). Using CARs, we investigate the stock price behavior to green bond issues for 414 listed companies and we demonstrated significant stock price increases around the announcement date of first-time green bond issues. For second issues, the positive stock price reaction to eco-friendly initiatives decreases while it completely disappears for the subsequent issues. From the management perspective, green bond issue seems an eco-friendly action with decreasing marginal benefits, because after the first issue, the market is already aware about the firm’s commitment to green projects.