Is greener really better? Stock market reaction to green bond announcements, Evidence from Europe

Abstract

Employing an event-study approach, we examine how the stock market responded to the offering of green bonds by non-financial companies listed on the European stock market from January 2013 to September 2022. We observed a drop, on average about 0.28%, in the company stock prices on the day they announced these offerings and the day after. Moreover, we found that investors react in the same manner for green bond announcements as for conventional bond announcements. We also studied if the Gavriilidis (2021)'s climate policy uncertainty index has any relationship with the market reactions. Our findings suggest that the index is positively related to the market's reaction to green bond offerings only before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.