Low-carbon city initiatives and analyst behaviour: a quasi-natural experiment
Low-carbon city initiatives and analyst behaviour: a quasi-natural experiment
This paper investigates how environmental regulation and action affect analyst behaviour. Exploiting staggered enactment of low carbon city (LCC) initiatives in a difference-in-differences (DiD) setting, we observe that analyst forecast accuracy (dispersion) is significantly lower (greater) for client firms headquartered in cities covered by the LCC pilot programme, especially among firms with a low-quality information environment. The LCC effort affects analyst behaviour via increased firm risk and reduced earnings predictability, causing enhanced site visits and coverage. The results are stronger in cities with more rigorous enforcement and regulation intensity, for private firms with high business complexity and in heavily polluting industries. Results are robust to DiD models with entropy balancing matching, placebo tests, parallel trend tests, and a battery of fixed effects. Collectively, they reveal that environmental regulation has real impacts on analyst forecast behaviour.
Cao, June
af0d62ff-d54c-412f-a152-cc04c63c7290
Li, Wenwen
e57619e8-17c3-4184-aace-9318ae5d4d1d
Bilokha, Alona
249fa173-a9d4-441d-b3d6-f2c1beb8a37c
28 July 2022
Cao, June
af0d62ff-d54c-412f-a152-cc04c63c7290
Li, Wenwen
e57619e8-17c3-4184-aace-9318ae5d4d1d
Bilokha, Alona
249fa173-a9d4-441d-b3d6-f2c1beb8a37c
Cao, June, Li, Wenwen and Bilokha, Alona
(2022)
Low-carbon city initiatives and analyst behaviour: a quasi-natural experiment.
Journal of Financial Stability, 62, [101042].
(doi:10.1016/j.jfs.2022.101042).
Abstract
This paper investigates how environmental regulation and action affect analyst behaviour. Exploiting staggered enactment of low carbon city (LCC) initiatives in a difference-in-differences (DiD) setting, we observe that analyst forecast accuracy (dispersion) is significantly lower (greater) for client firms headquartered in cities covered by the LCC pilot programme, especially among firms with a low-quality information environment. The LCC effort affects analyst behaviour via increased firm risk and reduced earnings predictability, causing enhanced site visits and coverage. The results are stronger in cities with more rigorous enforcement and regulation intensity, for private firms with high business complexity and in heavily polluting industries. Results are robust to DiD models with entropy balancing matching, placebo tests, parallel trend tests, and a battery of fixed effects. Collectively, they reveal that environmental regulation has real impacts on analyst forecast behaviour.
Text
Low-carbon city initiatives and analyst behaviour A quasi-natural experiment
- Version of Record
Restricted to Repository staff only
Request a copy
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 18 July 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 July 2022
Published date: 28 July 2022
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 500845
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/500845
ISSN: 1572-3089
PURE UUID: 288abdf4-a272-4e6b-887f-e4f66ac2d641
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 14 May 2025 16:30
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:49
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
June Cao
Author:
Wenwen Li
Author:
Alona Bilokha
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics