Our paper analyzes whether a planner should design a taxonomy for sustainable investment products when conventional tools for environmental regulation can also be used to address externalities arising from firm production. We first show that the private market provision of ESG funds marketed to retail investors involves greenwashing, so that a mandatory taxonomy is necessary to generate real effects of sustainable finance. However, the introduction of such a taxonomy can only improve welfare, on top of optimally chosen environmental regulation, if financial frictions constrain socially valuable economic activity. Otherwise, environmental policy alone is sufficient to optimally address externalities.

中文翻译：

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可持续金融与环境政策：漂绿是否证明可持续投资的分类法是合理的？


我们的论文分析了当传统的环境监管工具也可用于解决企业生产产生的外部性时，规划者是否应该为可持续投资产品设计分类法。我们首先表明，向散户投资者推销的 ESG 基金的私募市场供应涉及漂绿，因此必须采用强制性分类法才能产生可持续金融的真正效果。然而，如果金融摩擦限制了具有社会价值的经济活动，那么除了最佳选择的环境监管之外，这种分类法的引入只能改善福利。否则，仅靠环境政策就足以以最佳方式解决外部性问题。