Table 6:

Climate change exposure and the costs of high leverage: Paris Agreement.

Before Paris AgreementAfter Paris Agreement
(1)(2)(3)(4)
CCEXPOt-2 × HLEVt-2-0.0087
(-1.35)
-0.0089
(-1.37)
-0.0079*
(-1.77)
-0.0076*
(-1.71)
CCEXPOt-20.0108***
(3.37)
0.0109***
(3.41)
0.0027
(0.41)
0.0027
(0.41)
CSRt-2 × HLEVt-2 0.0091**
(2.45)
 0.0043
(0.72)
CSRt-2 -0.0096***
(-4.16)
 -0.0056
(-1.03)
HLEVt-2-0.0238***
(-3.98)
-0.0242***
(-4.05)
0.0045
(0.41)
0.0041
(0.37)
SIZEt0.0660***
(8.18)
0.0661***
(8.24)
0.2220***
(10.57)
0.2231***
(10.68)
COMPETITIONt0.1963
(1.23)
0.2073
(1.30)
0.0263
(0.04)
0.0004
(0.00)
PROFITt-1-0.0995***
(-3.28)
-0.1002***
( - 3.30)
-0.2158***
(-2.74)
-0.2144***
(-2.72)
PROFITt-2-0.0960***
(-2.99)
-0.0970***
(-3.03)
-0.0125
(-0.17)
-0.0113
(-0.15)
INVESTMENTt-i0.0539
(0.71)
0.0523
(0.69)
0.0859
(0.36)
0.0787
(0.33)
INVESTMENT t-2-0.0224
(-0.28)
-0.0220
(-0.28)
0.0412
(0.18)
0.0371
(0.17)
SELLEXPt-10.0914**
(2.36)
0.0912**
(2.35)
0.2130*
(1.75)
0.2139*
(1.75)
SELLEXPt-20.0293
(0.94)
0.0287
(0.92)
0.0353
(0.52)
0.0381
(0.56)
COGSt-1-0.3420***
(-10.42)
-0.3438***
(-10.51)
-0.4536***
(-6.57)
-0.4538***
(-6.57)
COGSt-20.1754***
(5.80)
0.1730***
(5.72)
0.1358**
(2.32)
0.1352**
(2.31)
PENALTYt-1-0.0010**
(-2.51)
-0.0010**
(-2.52)
-0.0006
(-0.85)
-0.0006
(-0.89)
PENALTYt-2-0.0010**
(-2.48)
-0.0009**
(-2.41)
-0.0012*
(-1.84)
-0.0012*
(-1.86)
CONSTANT0.0286
(0.31)
0.0263
(0.28)
-0.1029
(-0.30)
-0.0916
(- 0.27)
N15,25715,2574,7814,781
R-squared21.05%21.16%19.29%19.33%
Firm F.E.YYYY
Year × Industry F.E.YYYY
Note: This table reports the results of the effect of climate exposure on high leverage costs before and after the 2015 Paris Agreement. Models 1 and 2 report the regression results for the pre-Agreement sample; Models 3 and 4 report regression the results for the post-Agreement sample. The dependent variable is industry-adjusted sales growth (SALES_G). The main variable of interest is the interaction term between industry-adjusted climate change exposure (CCEXPO) and a dummy variable that equals 1 if, in that year, the firm’s long-term debt-to-assets ratio ranks in the top three deciles of the overall sample (HLEV). Additional variable definitions are in the Appendix. All control variables are adjusted to their industry-year means and are winsorized at the 1st and 99th percentiles. Further, we require that each industry-year contains at least four firms to be qualified in the analysis so that the industry-year mean is not biased toward outliers. The sample period is 2004—2020. The t-statistics based on heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors and clustered at the firm level are reported in parentheses. Asterisks denote statistical significance at the 1% (***), 5% (**), or 10% (*) level.

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