DETERMINANTS OF GREEN BOND ISSUANCE: AGENCY OR STAKEHOLDER MOTIVES MATTER?

Résumé

We investigate the underlying reasons for a firm to issue green bonds using agency and stakeholder theory as frameworks. We test how different proxies for each theory explain the decision to issue a green bond. We also test whether these proxies are relevant to green bond issuance amounts. We perform logit and fixed effects regressions using a dataset of green bond issuers and non-issuers in 27 countries for the 2013 to 2017 period. Our findings suggest that the agency motive is a key determinant of the decision to issue a green bond. However, agency issues seem to have only a partial impact on the size of the green bond issuances.