In this dissertation, economic implications of ESG disclosure, performance and assurance are examined in three essays. It is evident in the recent developments that the need for a sustainable and responsible investments is beyond discussion and becoming inevitable. An integral element required to make such investments is ESG information. The role and importance of ESG, especially to investment decisions, is attracting regulators’ interest in approaching the provision of ESG information through mandatory disclosure. Moreover, credit rating agencies are showing interest into the implications of ESG to credit risks. The purpose of this thesis is, therefore, to examine the reception of the mandatory EU ESG disclosure, and to examine the potential monitoring and signaling roles of third-party ESG assurance. The overall results of the thesis are three-fold. First, in examining the perception of investors towards EU directive on mandatory ESG disclosure, essay one shows a negative stock market reaction which indicates investors’ assessment of the directive as costly. The costs may include administrative and reporting costs of complying the mandate and potential proprietary and political costs following the reporting. Second, using sample firms from EU, essay two shows a higher ESG performance for firms that assure their ESG reports than firms that do not assure ESG reports. The results confirm the signaling role of an independent third-party assurance to differentiate between ESG performances. Firms with higher ESG performance has the incentive to use third-party ESG assurance to differentiate themselves from counterparts with an inferior ESG performance, otherwise both types of firms could be pooled together. Third, in line with monitoring theory of assurance and risk mitigation role of ESG to credit risks, essay three shows a mediated role of third-party ESG assurance on credit ratings. The results shows that the third-party ESG assurance indirectly leads to a reduced credit risk transferred through an enhanced ESG performance.
Using a sample of European firms, this study examines the signaling role of voluntary assurance of non-financial disclosures on their related performance, measured using environment, social, and governance (ESG) scores. Voluntary disclosures reduce information asymmetry and information risk, but such reductions are conditional on the verifiability of the disclosed information, thus requiring credibility. Given that skepticism in the reports is inevitable, credibility is paramount for differentiating firm performance. Credibility is enhanced by voluntarily purchasing assurance from an independent third party. This study argues that only firms with superior non-financial performance have an incentive to purchase assurance to differentiate themselves from poor-performing counterparts. The results reveal that firms with voluntary third-party assured reports have significantly higher ESG scores than those with unassured reports. This study offers new evidence on the signaling value of voluntary assurance on subsequent ESG scores.
The aim of this study is to examine the role of independent third-party environment, social, and governance (ESG) assurance in signalling higher ESG performance. While testing the hypothesis, a liner regression is applied using data from Thomson Reuters ESG scores and global reporting initiative database from a sample of 645 unique European firms over the period of 2012-2017. Firms with third-party assurance are found to have a significantly higher ESG performance than firms with no assurance. This study offers new evidence on the signalling value of an independent third party ESG assurance in differentiating ESG performances and confirms the incentive that high performing firms could use to separate from their counterparts with poor performance in a separating equilibrium. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.