Publication Type

PhD Dissertation

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

4-2024

Abstract

I examine whether and how firms incorporate retail customers’ environmental preferences into their pollution decisions. Leveraging the staggered revelations of firms’ environmental negative news and the granularity of household grocery shopping records, I quantify local customers’ heterogeneous environmental preferences based on the extent of product sales declines following the news events. In line with the conjecture that firms factor in rewards and penalties from customers and strategically reduce their pollution, I find a significant improvement in air quality near event firms’ facilities located in markets where local customers reveal the strongest environmental preferences. This effect is more pronounced when news events are more salient and when ex-ante information frictions between firms and customers are greater. Furthermore, I find no changes in firm-level pollution, and air quality significantly worsens in facilities located in markets where customers have weaker environmental preferences, corroborating firms’ pollution-shifting strategy. Overall, my findings shed light on retail customers’ role in firms’ environmental resource allocation.

Keywords

Environmental preferences, ESG preferences, Retail customers, Stakeholders, Pollution shifting, ESG resource allocation

Degree Awarded

PhD in Accounting

Discipline

Accounting

Supervisor(s)

CHENG, Qiang

First Page

1

Last Page

69

Publisher

Singapore Management University

City or Country

Singapore

Copyright Owner and License

Author

Included in

Accounting Commons

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