Risk Mitigation of Corporate Social Performance in US Class Action Lawsuits
研究发现，企业环境、社会和治理（ESG）表现越好，在美国集体诉讼中的风险越低；ESG表现差的公司市值损失是表现好的公司的两倍，投资者可通过高ESG表现获得类似保险的保护。
We investigated the relationship between corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and litigation risk by examining US class action lawsuits. We found that a 1 standard deviation improvement in the ESG controversies of an average company in the sample reduced litigation risk from 3.1% to 2.4%. Moreover, an average company with low ESG performance exhibited a loss in market value twice as large as that of a company with high ESG performance—an abnormal loss of US$1.14 billion. Implementation of our findings with a trading strategy yielded positive monthly alphas, suggesting that investors benefit from lower litigation risk and the insurance-like protection of high ESG performance.