Environmental Disclosure and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
利用福岛核灾难作为环境信息重要性变化的契机，研究发现披露碳排放的日本企业资本成本上升幅度小于未披露企业，且该效应主要由投资者对能源供应短缺的担忧驱动。
We examine the relation between environmental disclosure and the cost of capital by exploiting the Fukushima nuclear disaster as a source of variation in the relevance of environmental information for investors. Using a large hand-collected sample of Japanese firms, we find that firms disclosing carbon emissions experience a lower increase in the cost of capital than non-disclosing firms. Cross-sectional analyses suggest that the association between disclosure and the cost of capital is driven by the increase in investor uncertainty about the energy supply shortage that followed the disaster rather than future regulatory costs. Moreover, we find that after the disaster, non-disclosing firms in the pre-disaster period increase their environmental disclosures to a greater extent relative to disclosing firms. Taken together, our results provide insight into the link between non-financial, unregulated disclosures and the cost of capital.