Department of Banking and Financial Management
University of Piraeus

Academic Seminar Series

Thursday, May 16^th, 2024 / Time: 16:15 – 17:30, Online

Climate Value and Values Discovery in Earnings Calls

Ruishen Zhang

Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Abstract

We examine how financial analysts discuss value- and values-related climate change concerns in earnings calls. Questions on climate change frequently employ specific, and often quantitative, language, and they are tailored to both the industry in question and periods when such concerns are considered relevant. Compared to other questions, the climate change questions are less about value and more about values. Both types of climate-related questions increased over time, with value-related questions becoming relatively more important. Climate change discussions, especially when value-related, increase a stock’s trading volume, reflecting higher investor disagreement about how to interpret the information provided. Being “green” is not an innate trait among analysts, as less than 3% of the variance in climate change questions is due to analyst fixed effects. Analyst labor markets care about climate change questions: Both types of questions positively predict analysts’ career trajectories, including promotions and mobility, with value queries showing a more pronounced effect.

Ruishen Zhang is an Associate Professor of Accounting (without tenure) at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. He completed his PhD at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management in 2020 and his research interests are climate finance, information production in capital markets, corporate governance and the political economy of finance and accounting. His work has been published in Journal of Finance and Management Science. Further information is available at his personal web-site https://www.ruishenzhang.com/.

This seminar will be online on Teams. Click here to attend