To date, the literature has not discovered diversification to be a firm policy that shareholders can influence through their proposals at annual meetings but has explained contexts in which diversification can defend. I contemplate and test diversifying responses to shareholder proposals made in the context of climate change. By following 440 shareholder-initiated proposals in the United States that contain “climate change” – from the first instance in the 1994 proxy season until 2020 – I find that firms in receipt of such proposals diversify more, mostly into related industries. Further, diversification prompted by climate proposals generally leads to wealth enhancements. Beyond correlations and the main results of ordinary least squares regressions, I address the endogenous nature of corporate policies in a variety of ways: a matching estimator, fixed effects, and an instrumental variable, along with a placebo and a GMM estimator. Robustness tests confirm prior results and expose a subtle difference between sales and asset diversification. Climate-related proposals appear to influence sales diversification slightly more than asset diversification, suggesting that agents may be less responsive to owner concerns than customers. Overall, shareholder proposals related to climate change can have the real effect of prompting firms to diversify.

中文翻译：

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气候相关股东提案的实际影响：多元化


迄今为止，文献尚未发现多元化是股东可以通过年会上的提案影响的坚定政策，但已经解释了可以捍卫多元化的背景。我考虑并测试了对气候变化背景下股东提案的多样化回应。通过跟踪美国 440 项股东发起的包含“气候变化”的提案（从 1994 年代理季的第一次提案到 2020 年），我发现收到此类提案的公司更加多元化，大多进入相关行业。此外，气候提案引发的多元化通常会导致财富增加。除了相关性和普通最小二乘回归的主要结果之外，我还以多种方式讨论了公司政策的内生性：匹配估计量、固定效应和工具变量，以及安慰剂和 GMM 估计量。稳健性测试证实了先前的结果，并揭示了销售和资产多元化之间的细微差别。与气候相关的提议似乎对销售多元化的影响略大于对资产多元化的影响，这表明代理商对业主担忧的反应可能不如客户。总体而言，与气候变化相关的股东提案可以产生促进公司多元化的实际效果。