Corporate ESG Profiles and Banking Relationships
研究发现银行更愿意贷款给ESG表现与自己相似的借款人，并能提升借款人的后续ESG表现，尤其当银行ESG评级远高于借款人、且借款人依赖银行贷款时。
Abstract We show that banking relationships promote corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies. Specifically, banks are more likely to grant loans to borrowers with ESG profiles similar to their own and positively influence the borrower’s subsequent ESG performance. Their influence is more pronounced when (1) banks have significantly better ESG ratings than borrowers and (2) borrowers are bank dependent. We exploit M&A among lenders as a source of quasi-exogenous variation in the lender’s ESG standard to alleviate endogeneity concerns. Overall, our study presents the first evidence on the interplay between responsible bank lending and borrowers’ ESG behavior.