| Author: | Guo, Jia |
| Title: | Competitive advantage from mandatory climate risk disclosures : evidence from the U.S. insurance industry |
| Advisors: | Rusticus, Tjomme (AF) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Insurance -- United States Climatic changes -- Economic aspects Disclosure of information Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | School of Accounting and Finance |
| Pages: | 68 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | I examine the effect of mandatory climate risk disclosures on insurers’ underwriting business by exploiting the U.S. insurance industry’s adoption of the Climate Risk Disclosure Survey (CRDS), which mandates that certain insurers respond to questions about their climate risk strategies. Using a staggered difference-in-differences research design, I find that compared to insurers not affected by the CRDS mandate, those affected by it experience an increase in their underwriting business after CRDS adoption. This outcome suggests that the CRDS mandate results in affected insurers gaining a competitive advantage in their underwriting business. This positive effect is more pronounced when insurers’ underwriting business is more exposed to customers concerned about climate risk, when they experience more underwriting business competition, or when their headquarters are in a Democratic state. I also perform a textual analysis of the affected insurers’ CRDS responses, which offers supplementary evidence of a positive association between insurers’ proactiveness in addressing climate risk issues and their future underwriting business. My study offers the novel insight that by encouraging firms to include climate risk in their business strategies and communicate such strategies publicly, mandated climate risk disclosure can enhance firms’ competitive advantage. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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