Seminar (Dept. of Accounting)

Title：Voluntary ESG Disclosure and Heterogeneous Beliefs among ESG Investors

Speaker：Wei Sijing, Assistant Professor, Creighton University

Time：10:00-11:30, May 15th, 2024 (Wednesday)

Venue：Room 1007, Mingde Business Building

Language：Chinese & English

ABSTRACT:

We examine whether voluntary environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports reduce the dispersion in the excess weights on individual stocks in different actively managed ESG mutual funds’ portfolios. We find that disagreement among investors (both ESG and non-ESG investors) is significantly negatively related to ESG disclosure, consistent with prior conclusions that ESG disclosure aids traditional valuation. In our main test, we find a similar but much more pronounced effect of ESG disclosure on disagreement among ESG investors, indicating that ESG reports have the additional impact of promoting alignment in investors’ assessments of companies’ ESG performance. The effect of ESG disclosure is enhanced when reports are more accessible, when they have more credibility-enhancing features and when they include more discussion of environmental matters. Collectively, the results indicate that ESG reports not only aid traditional valuation but also aid ESG assessments, which are increasingly important elements of modern investment.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Wei is an Assistant Professor of Accounting and Union Pacific Research Fellow at Creighton University. Dr. Wei earned her Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of Maryland – College Park in May 2017. At Creighton, Dr. Wei currently teaches undergraduate accounting and graduate MBA classes, including introduction of managerial accounting, international accounting (both online and in person), and accounting for managers (both online and in person).

Dr. Wei has a broad research interest in accounting and interdisciplinary areas. Her research topics include voluntary disclosure, information transparency, product market, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance and disclosures, corporate governance, stakeholders’ interests (i.e., consumers and employees), gender and ethical issues, and textual analysis (MD&A of Annual Report, earnings conference calls, and ESG disclosures). To date, Dr. Wei has published 13 peer-reviewed articles, and four of them have appeared in some premier journals, including The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, and European Accounting Review.