The role of environmental, social, and governance rating on corporate debt structure
研究发现，企业获得ESG评级后，最优杠杆率和信息不对称程度降低，且融资来源从债券发行转向银行贷款，尤其对财务压力大、增长机会少的企业更明显。
This paper examines the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rating on a firm’s debt structure. We find that optimal (market and book) leverage ratios and information asymmetry are reduced when firms become ESG rated. More importantly, ESG rated firms redistribute their financing sources from public debt (bonds issuing) to private debt (bank loans). These results are attributed to the incentive of ESG rated firms to avoid debt-overhang and underinvestment issues and to the fact that the ESG rating conveys valuable information to lenders leading to better access towards more internal sources of financing, such as bank loans over debt issuing. We further find that the substitution effect is more pronounced for firms with high financial pressure, low growth opportunities and specialized assets. Finally, these results remain valid under various robustness and endogeneity tests.