Sustainable investments

Confronted with ongoing climate change, states, companies, and investors are under pressure to invest in structural transformation. Sustainability criteria should already be considered in the investment process. How can capital flows be aligned with the necessary economic restructuring?
Research topics:
- Sustainable financial products
- Green bonds
- Sustainability labels
- Impact investing
- Impact measurement
- Divestment
- Shareholder engagement and stewardship
- Sustainable financial market policy
- Investment incentives
- International climate finance
Publications
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Policy Brief, Sustainability Risks and Opportunities
PB 3/2023: Climate transition plans: State of play in EU legislation and policy recommendations
Company transition plans (of real economy and financial market actors) have the potential to become a steering instrument for directing capital flows toward climate neutrality…
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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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Scientific publication
Environmental and Resource Economics: Low-Carbon Investment and Credit Rationing
This paper develops a principal-agent model with adverse selection to analyse firms’ decisions between an existing carbon-intensive technology and a new low-carbon technology requiring an…
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Policy Brief, Sustainability Risks and Opportunities
PB 6/2022: The first ECB bottom-up climate stress test: dealing with data gaps and methodological challenges
The ECB’s “SSM Climate risk stress test,” published in July 2022, provides an important step toward integrating climate change related risks into the banking system.…
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Policy Brief, Sustainability Reporting, Sustainability Risks and Opportunities
PB 5/2022: Standardized stress test scenario can improve climate risk reporting
More and more countries, regions, cities, companies, and financial institutions are defining climate neutrality as a strategic goal. So far, however, it is not possible…
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