"Hållbarhet och Kapitalkostnad" - en studie på den svenska aktiemarknaden

Abstract

This research paper investigates the relationship between the components of the ESG-score and the firm's cost of capital. The study is conducted on the Swedish stock market and includes all Swedish companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange with a market cap equal or larger than 1 billion euro. The thesis investigates the relationship during the time period 2017-2019. A quantitative method is implemented by running both a random effect regression and a pooled OLS regression in order to determine the effects of the components. The main findings imply that solely the environmental part of the ESG rating has a significant negative effect on the firms’ cost of capital. The effect is significant at a 5% and a 10% significance level. Furthermore, the social component and the governance component of the ESG-rating are not of significance at any significance level. The result contradicts some of the previous findings within the field of research. Furthermore, abbreviation specifications can be found in A.1.