ESG评级分歧与债务资本成本

ESG Rating Disagreement and the Cost of Debt

ESG(环境、社会责任和公司治理)是当前公司金融的重要研究内容。对于ESG表现的考察依赖于ESG评级,但目前一个广泛存在的问题是不同ESG评级机构给出的评级存在着较大的分歧,其影响和对策尚待研究。本文首次检验了ESG评级分歧对上市企业债务资本成本的影响,并探讨背后的机制。结果表明,ESG评级分歧较高的企业有着更高的债务资本成本。本文进一步分析了2019年中国香港交易所进行的ESG信息披露规则改革的政策冲击,和ESG评级分歧在不同信息披露规范性企业中的影响,发现企业ESG信息披露的不规范是导致该效应的重要因素,市场认为企业ESG真实表现背离评级均值的风险高,因而要求一个额外的风险溢价。此外,结合文献中关于企业权益融资成本的证据,本文发现尽管评级分歧使企业债务资本成本增加,但由于该分歧同时增加了权益融资成本,故企业债务融资比例不降反升。本文从企业融资决策的视角,为ESG评级分歧产生的后果和作用机制提供了一定的证据支持,并且具有重要的政策含义:由于ESG评级分歧负面影响的机制在于让市场认为其信息披露不规范,因此解决评级分歧负面影响的关键在于建立ESG信息披露标准来引导企业规范披露,并引导企业积极向市场释放披露规范性的信号。

ESG(Environmental,Social Responsibilities,and Corporate Governance)constitutes a pivotal concern within the realm of corporate finance.The evaluation of ESG performance pivots on the framework of ESG ratings.A pervasive challenge in this domain is the substantial variance in ratings across different agencies,accentuating the need for comprehensive investigation into its implications and potential remedies.This paper pioneers an inquiry into the ramifications of ESG rating disparities on the indebtedness cost incurred by publicly listed firms,shedding light on the underlying mechanisms at play.The results show that higher ESG rating disagreement is correlated with a higher cost of debt.Further mechanism analyses using a policy shock that changed the requirement of ESG disclosure and variation in firms'disclosure quality show that the key issue is the arbitrary ESG disclosure,which increases the risk perceived by the market that the true ESG performance deviates from the rating and hence the risk premium.In addition,combined with the literature on changes in the cost of equity,we find that even though the cost of debt increases,the proportion of debt financing increases since the cost of equity increases as well.From the perspective of financing decisions,this paper provides evidence for the consequences of and the solution to ESG rating disagreement.The findings have significant policy implications.Given that the linchpin behind the influence of ESG rating disparities on debt costs is the perceived deficiency in ESG disclosure quality within the market,the crux of the solution resides in establishing standardized disclosure norms.This,in turn,can guide firms towards a more uniform and substantive approach to ESG disclosure,thereby promoting the transmission of high-quality signals.