Investor rewards to environmental responsibility: Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 shock and its unprecedented financial consequences have brought about vast uncertainty concerning the future of climate actions. We study cross-section stock returns during to explore investors' views expectations environmental issues. results show that firms with responsible strategies on issues experience better returns. This effect is mainly driven by initiatives addressing change (e.g., reduction emissions energy use), more pronounced for greater ownership investors long-term orientation not observed prior crisis. Overall, indicate has distracted attention away from but contrary led them reward responsibility a larger extent.