Although green bonds are becoming increasingly popular in the corporate finance practice, little is known about their implications and effectiveness in terms of issuers' environmental engagement. With the use of matched bond-issuer data, we test whether green bond issues are associated to a reduction in total and direct (Scope 1) emissions of nonfinancial companies. We find that, compared with conventional bond issuers with similar financial characteristics and environmental ratings, green issuers display a decrease in the carbon intensity of their assets after borrowing on the green segment. The decrease in emissions is more pronounced, significant and long-lasting when we exclude green bonds with refinancing purposes, which is consistent with an increase in the volume of climate-friendly activities due to new projects. We also find a larger reduction in emissions in case of green bonds that have external review, as well as those issued after the Paris Agreement. K E Y W O R D S climate change, corporate sustainability, environment, green bonds, impact investing 1 | INTRODUCTION Green bonds are debt instruments that differ from conventional fixed income securities only in that the issuer pledges to use the proceeds to finance projects that are meant to have positive environmental or climate effects. Since its debut in 2007, the green bond market has been growing steadfastly. According to the Climate Bond Initiative (2020), new issues have reached 230 billion euros (257 billion USD) globally in 2019, up from 142 billion in 2018 and 28 billion euros in 2014.Although the overall size of the green segment is still tiny in comparison with the funds raised with conventional bonds, there is massive potential for further market growth as environmental issues are raising high on the policy agenda. For instance, Europe alone is estimated to need about 180 billion euros of additional investment a year to achieve the targets set for 2030 in the context of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, including a 40% cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.The growing interest of public policy towards green bonds has indeed already materialized into a number of initiatives to encourage market participants, on both the demand and the supply side. For instance, direct subsidies or grant schemes, such as the Sustainable Bond Grant in Singapore, are in place to support eligible issuers in covering the additional costs associated with external review for the green securities.Likewise, several jurisdictions worldwide, including China and Honk Kong, have issued regulations in order to enhance transparency and disclosure on the green bond market, which is instrumental in aligning investors' incentives. A major development at the international level is the design of uniform green bond standards by the European Commission, in the context of a broader initiative to promote sustainable finance. Like for existing market-based voluntary standards, the proposed European Union (EU) standards adopt a project-based approach grounded on the bond p...
The financial system plays a major role in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We investigate this issue analyzing the recent developments and challenges in the bond and debt markets. First, we study the pricing of green bonds at issuance. We find a premium when green bonds are issued by supranational institutions and corporates while there is no effect for financial institutions. We also document an effect for external review and repeated access to this market. Second, we investigate lending decisions by banks issuing green bonds. Our results show that these lenders reduce their funding towards more polluting segments of the economy but limited to the amount of loans they granted as lead bank in the deal. This evidence may explain why we do not find a green premium for financial issuers. Yet it also suggests that the banking system may play a much larger role in channelling funds towards low-carbon activities, and thus reducing the environmental risks also for the financial system.
The financial system plays a major role in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We investigate this issue analyzing the recent developments and challenges in the bond and debt markets. First, we study the pricing of green bonds at issuance. We find a premium when green bonds are issued by supranational institutions and corporates while there is no effect for financial institutions. We also document an effect for external review and repeated access to this market. Second, we investigate lending decisions by banks issuing green bonds. Our results show that these lenders reduce their funding towards more polluting segments of the economy but limited to the amount of loans they granted as lead bank in the deal. This evidence may explain why we do not find a green premium for financial issuers. Yet it also suggests that the banking system may play a much larger role in channelling funds towards low-carbon activities, and thus reducing the environmental risks also for the financial system.
The tax deductibility of interest payments in most corporate income tax systems coupled with no such measure for equity financing creates economic distortions and exacerbates leverage. This paper discusses the consequences of this debt bias and the possible remedies.JEL classification: H25, H32, G21, G32
This paper presents new evidence on the impact of the preferential treatment of owner-occupied housing in the euro area. We find that tax benefits to homeowners reduce the user cost of housing capital by almost 40 per cent compared with the efficient level under neutral taxation. On average, the tax subsidy translates into an excess consumption of housing services equivalent to 7.8 per cent of the value of owner-occupied housing, or about 30 per cent of financial asset holdings in household portfolios. The bulk of the subsidy stems from undertaxation of the return to home equity, while the average contribution of the tax rebate for mortgage interest payments is driven down by relatively low loan-to-value ratios in the data. However, at the margin, the tax-induced *
The paper examines the fiscal impacts, and the associated welfare cost, of marginal reforms to work-related tax relief in five European countries. We combine a theoretical model of labour supply with micro-simulation results from an EU-wide model, which allows us to capture the interaction between the specific tax incentive and other relevant provisions of the tax-benefit system along the entire earnings distribution. We find that changes in labour supply decisionsboth at the extensive (participation) and at the intensive margin (hours worked)have significant impacts on the revenue gain from the simulated reforms. Our results suggest that at least one-fourth of the extra tax revenues collected through a reduction in work-related tax incentives is washed away following labour supply adjustment, notably due to lower participation by individuals most at risk of exclusion. In some instances, the erosion of the initial revenue gain becomes substantial. For policies strongly targeted at the bottom of the earnings distribution, the reform might even bring about a net revenue loss, depending on the calibration of the labour supply elasticities to reflect heterogeneity across types of workers. The welfare effect of contractions to these tax schemes could be far from negligible.
This paper investigates the optimal strategy for a multinational to conduct FDI. We find that the incentives to use acquisition rather than greenfield investment change significantly if the multinational is allowed to have already an ownership interest in the target local firm before the market is fully liberalized. Interestingly, when investment costs are sufficiently high, the multinational prefers not entering the market at all with partial ownership in place, whereas a cross-border takeover would be the optimal entry mode otherwise. For intermediate levels of entry costs, holding a stake in the local producer reverses positively the profitability of a full acquisition compared to greenfield investment. Copyright � 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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