This study analyzes the trading behavior of institutional and retail investors around ESG rating announcements. Using unique stock market data of South Korea, we analyzed institutional and retail investors’ reactions around the ESG rating announcement date when the ESG rating is upgraded/downgraded. We found that Institutional investors tend to sell ESG-downgraded stocks, whereas retail investors tend to buy them. Our findings suggest this varying reaction is due to information asymmetry and differences in rationality between institutional and retail investors. We highlighted the moderating role of media attention toward ESG in investors’ trading behaviors, supporting the information asymmetry mechanism.
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Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Literature review 2.1. Firm ESG performance and market reaction 2.2. Credit rating announcement and market reaction 2.3. Institutional Investors and Retail Investors 3. Hypothesis development 4. Methodology 4.1. Data 4.2. ESG rating data 4.3. Stock data 4.4. Google News data 5. Results 5.1. Descriptive statistics 5.2. Hypothesis 1 results 5.3. Hypothesis 2 results 5.4. Hypothesis 3 results 5.5. Hypothesis 4 results 6. Discussion 7. Conclusion References Tables Appendices End-notes