Publications

02 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

The Most Popular Stories and Research Papers of 2017

George Serafeim from more than 400 senior investment professionals provides insights into why and how investors use environmental, social, and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

10 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

Working for a Shamed Company Can Hurt Your Future Compensation

that employer’s name on their curriculum vitae? “You have this great name on your CV, and suddenly it goes from being an asset to a liability,” says George Serafeim, the Jakurski Family Associate Professor... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

12 Feb 2012
News

The horizon vocabulary

Article

Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance

By: Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

In this paper, we investigate whether superior performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies leads to better access to finance. We hypothesize that better access to finance can be attributed to a) reduced agency costs due to enhanced stakeholder... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability; Capital Constraints; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Stakeholder Engagement; Disclosure; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Capital

20 Aug 2019
News

Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World?

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

Claudine, Andrea Prat, and George Serafeim Abstract—We construct a measure of corporate purpose within a sample of U.S. companies based on approximately 500,000 survey... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

03 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

How Companies Can Increase Market Rewards for Sustainability Efforts

company’s investments in sustainability activities. Serafeim next wants to study how corporate ESG disclosures come into play for companies and investors. “Many companies are increasing their disclosure... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

29 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

'Green Bonds' May Be Our Best Bet for Environmental Damage Control

George Serafeim and Malcolm Baker have long been interested in investor motivations that go beyond pure financial return to include environmental, social, View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy; Utilities; Construction; Green Technology; Public Administration

07 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Market Investors Pay More for Resilient Companies

The steep market drop in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis is being used as a laboratory to study the importance of companies investing in stakeholder relations with their employees, suppliers, and customers, and how those investments could be strategic resources... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

November 2014
Article

The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance

By: Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

We investigate the effect of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Using a matched sample of 180 U.S. companies, we find that corporations that voluntarily adopted sustainability policies by 1993—termed as High Sustainability... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Sustainability Research; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Accountability; Reporting; Corporate Governance; Investor Clientele; Investor Communication; Stock Market; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Performance; United States

2021
Working Paper

Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information

By: David Freiberg, DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski

As an organization’s environmental impact has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive comparable... View Details

Keywords: Environment; Impact; Measurement; Environmental Ratings; Corporate Valuation; Financial Materiality; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation

Read Now

September – October 2011
Article

The Rise and Consequences of Corporate Sustainability Reporting

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

For many decades the cornerstone of corporate reporting has been financial information that is presented in a company's annual, semi-annual, and quarterly reports. These comprehensive financial reports—required by law for public companies in most countries... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; ESG Reporting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Annual Reports; Operations; Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Performance; Business Model; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Disclosure

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March 2020
Article

Voluntary, Self-Regulatory, and Mandatory Disclosure of Oil and Gas Company Payments to Foreign Governments

By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim

Concerns about high rates of government corruption in resource-rich countries have led transparency advocates to urge oil and gas firms to disclose payments to host governments for natural resources. Transparency, they argue, can increase government accountability and... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Corruption; Transparency; Self-regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Regulation; Disclosure; Disclosure Regulation; Energy Sources; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Energy Industry

Article

Integrated Reporting and Investor Clientele

By: George Serafeim

In this paper, I examine the relation between Integrated Reporting (IR) and the composition of a firm's investor base. I hypothesize and find that firms that practice IR have a more long-term oriented investor base with more dedicated and fewer transient investors.... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Sustainability Reporting; Long-term Investing; Short-termism; Accounting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Environmental Sustainability; Investment; Corporate Governance