My dissertation explores the overarching question: how do firms respond to climate change?
Chapter 1 is entitled “Climate Change Exposure and Firm’s Adaptation Strategies”. In this chapter, I build a novel dataset that compiles information on the adaptation strategies of publicly traded companies globally and merge it with climate science data. Using these data, I examine whether, how, and under which conditions firms adapt to physical climate change exposures. I find that most firms don’t adapt to different climate change exposures. Firms take a targeted approach to adaptation – responding more to those aspects of climate exposures that are likely to affect them directly. Also, I show that firms with better ESG ratings are more responsive to varying climate exposures. I then report evidence that perception and capabilities may provide the mechanisms for different adaptation rates and strategies.
The 2nd chapter, titled “Assessing the Climate Change Exposure of Foreign Direct Investment" (published in Nature Communications in 2022 and coauthored with Kevin Gallagher) explores the climate change exposure of foreign direct investments. Despite the increasing impact of physical climate risks on firms and facilities globally, little is known about how multinational companies incorporate such risks into their overseas investment decisions. This chapter examines the climate change exposures of multinational companies’ overseas investments. Globally, foreign investments are significantly exposed to lower physical climate risks, compared with local firms across countries. Within countries, however, the differences of physical climate risks between foreign and local facilities are small. We also examine China, as it is rapidly becoming one of the largest sources of outward foreign investment across the globe. We find that foreign investment from China is significantly more exposed to water stress, floods, hurricanes, and typhoon risks across countries, compared with other foreign facilities. Within host countries, however, the physical climate risks of Chinese overseas facilities are comparable to those of non-Chinese foreign investments.
Chapter 3 is titled “Competing or Complementary Labels? Estimating Spillovers in Chinese Green Building Certification” (published in the Strategic Management Journal, 2021). I and Tim Simcoe examine the spillovers in the adoption of “competing” green building certifications, one important climate change mitigation strategy. In this chapter, we argue that there can be positive spillovers in the adoption of “competing” certifications and propose a framework for understanding how such spillovers arise through three channels: suppliers, adopters, and users of various labels. Our empirical analysis demonstrates these effects in the context of Chinese green-building certification. Specifically, we measure spillovers from adoption of the Chinese Green Building Evaluation Label (GBEL) to adoption of the alternative LEED standard within the same city. To isolate the causal impact of GBEL on LEED adoption, we use local government subsidies as an instrumental variable. We find evidence of market-level spillovers through the supplier and user channels, but little evidence of building-level scope economies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/46185 |
| Date | 08 May 2023 |
| Creators | Li, Xia |
| Contributors | Simcoe, Timothy S. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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