An important debate exists around the extent to which retail investors make sustainable investments and, if they do, why. We contribute to this debate by investigating the aggregate trading patterns of retail investors around a comprehensive sample of key environmental, social, and governance (ESG) news events for U.S. firms. We show that ESG news events appear to be an important factor in retail investors’ portfolio allocation decisions. Yet, inconsistent with arguments about retail investors’ nonpecuniary preferences, our evidence shows that retail investors mainly trade on this information when they deem it financially material to a company’s stock performance. We also find their net trading demand predicts abnormal returns in the subsample of financially material events, consistent with retail traders benefiting from incorporating ESG-related information into their decision-making when it influences firm value. Overall we conclude that the average U.S. retail investor cares about firms’ ESG activities but primarily to the extent these activities matter for company financial performance.

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散户投资者和 ESG 新闻


关于散户投资者进行可持续投资的程度以及如果这样做的话，原因存在一个重要的争论。我们围绕美国公司关键环境、社会和治理 (ESG) 新闻事件的综合样本调查散户投资者的总体交易模式，为这场辩论做出贡献。我们表明，ESG 新闻事件似乎是散户投资者投资组合配置决策的重要因素。然而，与散户投资者非金钱偏好的论点不一致，我们的证据表明，当散户投资者认为这些信息对公司股票表现具有财务重要性时，他们主要根据这些信息进行交易。我们还发现，他们的净交易需求预测了财务重大事件子样本中的异常回报，这与零售交易者在 ESG 相关信息影响公司价值时受益于将 ESG 相关信息纳入决策中的情况一致。总体而言，我们得出的结论是，美国普通散户投资者关心公司的 ESG 活动，但主要关注这些活动对公司财务业绩的影响程度。