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Climate Change Exposure, Financial Development, and the Cost of Debt: Evidence from EU Countries

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Vu TrinhORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

Utilising climate-related narratives in conference call transcripts to measure firm-level exposure to climate risks, we examine the association between such exposure and the corporate cost of debt financing. Using a sample of 21 European countries from 2001 to 2020, we find that firms exposed to greater climate change experience higher debt costs. The impact is even more extreme when using climate-related opportunity and regulatory exposure measures. We further find critical economic channels through which the higher debt costs occur: financial development and credit supplies. Specifically, our findings hold only for firms in weakly developed financial markets and institutions as measured by the new broad-based multi-dimensional financial development indices. We also find some other conditioning factors. (1) The higher the carbon intensity level, the greater the debt cost a firm with more climate change exposure must pay. (2) Debtholders appear to punish firms with high environmental and social disclosure that are exposed to more climate change. (3) The findings are more pronounced in financially constrained firms.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Trinh VQ, Trinh HH, Li T, Vo XV

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Financial Stability

Year: 2024

Volume: 74

Print publication date: 01/10/2024

Online publication date: 03/08/2024

Acceptance date: 29/07/2024

Date deposited: 30/07/2024

ISSN (print): 1572-3089

ISSN (electronic): 1878-0962

Publisher: Elsevier

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfs.2024.101315

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2024.101315

Data Access Statement: Data will be made available on reasonable request.


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