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Seminar

Divestments and the Global Reallocation of Pollutive Assets

When

04 April 2024

11:00 - 12:15 CET

Where

Cappella

Villa Schifanoia - Chapel

'Finance in the Tuscan Hills' seminar series with Tobias Berg

|| This seminar is open ONLY to EUI members ||

Join us for the next event of the 'Finance in the Tuscan Hills' seminar series, where we are trilled to host Tobias Berg, Professor of Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt and research fellow at CEPR.

He will be presenting his paper, Out of sight, out of mind: Divestments and the Global Reallocation of Pollutive Assets, which he co-authored with Lin Ma and Daniel Streitz.

In their paper, Berg and his co-author investigate how large emitters reduced their carbon emissions by around 11-15% after the 2015 Paris Agreement relative to public firms that are less in the limelight. They show that this effect is predominantly driven by divestments. Large emitters are 9 p.p. more likely to divest pollutive assets in the post-Agreement period, an increase of over 75%. This divestment effect comes from asset sales and not from closures of pollutive facilities. There is no evidence for increased engagements in other emission reduction activities. Their results indicate significant global asset reallocation effects after the Agreement, shifting emissions out of the limelight.

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Tobias Berg is Professor of Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt and research fellow at CEPR. His research focuses on financial intermediation with a recent focus on financial technology, climate change, and real estate markets. Tobias Berg serves as an Associate Editor at the Review of Finance and previously served as an Associate Editor of the Review of Financial Studies. He has received the Review of Financial Studies Distinguished Referee Award, was ranked among the Top 10 Economists in Germany, and was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for his work on Banking and Climate Change.

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The FBF seminar series ‘Finance in the Tuscan Hills’ focuses on financial sector issues and aims to bring together researchers from across the EUI community, who share an interest in these subjects.

Scientific Organiser

Florence School of Banking and Finance

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