Dataset: Shocks, Stocks and Ratings

The financial community suggests it increasingly accounts for environmental and social concerns.
To investigate this claim, we study how stock market participants and credit rating agencies respond to global environmental and health hazards.
The actions of numerous investors who trade on public information determine firm value. Credit rating agencies produce ratings based on private information.
These ratings inform about a firm’s default and business risk. We establish that financial investors show a timely and significant response, but this response is highly generic and is small from an economic perspective.
We also find that credit ratings do not immediately respond in a significant way.
Further, when we compare these two key agents of the financial community, it shows that markets and raters respond in a different way to the hazards.
We conclude that the international financial community so far does not appropriately account for global environmental and health hazards.