Prof. Dr. Christian Klein
Christian Klein is a professor of Sustainable Finance at the University of Kassel. His research interests include the investment behavior of sustainable investors, characteristics ofsustainable investments as well as the effect of sustainability on the capital market and the associated framework. He is particularly interested in measuring the contribution that sustainable investment products could make on the road to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (impact).
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Policy Brief
PB 2/2023: The role of sustainable investments in the transformation: (further) education as a key element
Sustainable investments can be an important building block in the transformation of the economy and society. There has recently been a growing interest in sustainable…
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Scientific publication
Finance Research Letters: Rating changes revisited: New evidence on short-term ESG momentum
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings are mainstream in sustainable finance. This paper provides important evidence on the effects of ESG rating changes on companies’…
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Policy Brief, Sustainability Reporting
PB 4/2022: Key observations about the open EU consultation on the functioning of the EU ESG ratings market
The European Commission has launched a consultation on the functioning of the ESG ratings market in the European Union and on the consideration of ESG…
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Policy Brief, Sustainability Reporting
PB 3/2022: Raising transparency through TCFD-aligned climate reporting
The availability of consistent and comparable climate-related information is a decisive factor in considering the effects of climate change for business and investment decisions. The…
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Scientific publication
Climate Policy: Financing the transformation: a proposal for a credit scheme to finance the Paris Agreement
To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, massive investments in the real economy are needed. We propose providing long-term interest subsidized loans to companies…
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Scientific publication
Organization & Environment: Under Pressure? The Link Between Mandatory Climate Reporting and Firms’ Carbon Performance
We examine whether and how mandatory climate reporting leads to changes in firms’ carbon emissions. Drawing on legitimacy theory and using a difference-in-differences design, we…
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Scientific publication
Corporate Finance: New evidence on German retail investors: The desire to make an impact
To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, massive investments in the real economy are needed. We propose providing long-term interest subsidized loans to companies…
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Policy Brief
PB 10/2021: Equity portfolio divestment leads to lower CO2 emissions
To achieve climate goals, financial flows must be redirected from climate-damaging to climate-friendly economic activities. A key approach is divestment, i.e., the systematic sale of…
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Policy Brief, Sustainability Reporting, Sustainability Risks and Opportunities
PB 9/2021: The EU sustainable finance strategy – Implications for the future German Federal Government
The EU’s revised sustainable finance strategy confirms the important role of the financial sector in the sustainability transition of the economy, but does not sufficiently…
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Scientific publication
SN Business & Economics: Impact investments: a call for (re)orientation
Practitioners and academics have been using different terms to describe investments in the sustainability context. The latest inflationary term is impact investments—investments that focus on…
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Scientific publication
Corporate Finance: Regulatory framework for sustainable investment products – Current developments and associated challenges
With the Sustainable Finance legislative package published by the European Commission on April 21, 2021, another valuable step has been taken towards sustainable financial development.…
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Scientific publication
Journal of Asset Management: The effect of environmental sustainability on credit risk
The European Commission has proposed establishing a framework that redirects capital to sustainable investments in order to foster sustainable economic growth. A key proposal from…
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Scientific publication
Business Strategy and the Environment: Integrated reporting of environmental, social, and governance and financial data: Does the market value integrated reports?
The concept of reporting nonfinancial information within the annual report, so-called Integrated Reporting (IR) is a rising topic in reporting practice. Supporters claim that IR…
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Scientific publication
Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment: On the heterogeneity of sustainable and responsible investors
We demonstrate that German retail investors have very heterogeneous requirements pertaining to ‘sustainable investments’ as a group, based on a representative survey (n = 1014). According to…
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Scientific publication
Journal of Business Ethics: Individual and regional Christian religion and the consideration of sustainable criteria in consumption and investment decisions: An exploratory econometric analysis
The concept of sustainable and responsible (SR) investments expresses that every investment should be based on the SR investor’s code of ethics. To a large…
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Scientific publication
Journal of Applied Accounting Research: Board composition and corporate risk-taking: a review of listed firms from Germany and the USA
Corporate governance is a crucial factor when considering excessive corporate risk-taking. Since corporate boards play such an important role in corporate governance, the purpose of…
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Scientific publication
Corporate Finance: Sustainable and conventional mutual funds: Do they really differ?
This study empirically analyzes the claim that sustainable funds are masked conventional funds for a small part of the German equity fund market. Additionally, we…
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Scientific publication
Corporate Ownership and Control: The Effects of Ownership Concentration on Sustainability: A Case of Listed Firms from USA, UK and Germany
Concentrated ownership has been speculated to play a direct role in leading firms to focus more on long-term sustainability. Concentrated ownership, however, can take many…
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Scientific publication
Corporate Finance: Characterizing German (Sustainable) Investors
This paper highlights the results of four empirical studies, based on the same representative survey among German retail investors. We analyze the differences between sustainable,…
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Scientific publication
Journal of Banking & Finance: Corporate social responsibility and Eurozone corporate bonds: The moderating role of country sustainability
In this paper, we empirically examine whether superior performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) results in lower credit risk, measured by credit ratings and zero-volatility spreads (z-spreads).…
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Scientific publication
Business Research: Ethical requirement and financial interest: a literature review on socially responsible investing
This paper provides an overview of the status quo in socially responsible investing (SRI) literature. We outline motives, history, and current best practice of SRI.…
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Scientific publication
Corporate Ownership and Control: Theoretical foundations of corporate governance revisited: A critical review
In this paper we review some of the initial ideologies regarding corporate governance, focusing in particular on the – in the literature dominating – Principal-Agent-Approach.…
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