Essays on the Drivers and Economic Consequences of Climate Risks and Reporting

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🔬研究者:Empirical evidence on climate risk transmission to impairments and audit fees, and on symbolic disclosure under uncertainty, offering testable hypotheses for future work.

🏢実務担当者:Audit teams and disclosure managers should account for climate risk in impairment testing and expect higher audit fees; symbolic disclosure may not satisfy stakeholder demands under increasing regulatory scrutiny.

🏛政策担当者:Standard setters (ISSB, SASB) should consider that policy uncertainty leads to symbolic rather than substantive disclosure, and that governance mechanisms can mitigate adverse effects.

Climate change has received growing attention in recent years. A considerable number of studies have investigated the consequences of climate risks and the determinants of climate change disclosures. This thesis aims to contribute to this growing body of research by exploring the financial, reporting, and audit implications of climate risks. It comprises three papers that examine the impacts of climate risks on asset impairments and audit fees, as well as the relationship between climate policy uncertainty and climate change disclosures, offering new insights into how firms and their stakeholders respond to the escalating challenges posed by climate change. The first study (Chapter 2) examines the impact of climate risks on long-lived tangible asset impairments in US firms from 2009 to 2022. The results show that climate risks significantly increase both the likelihood and magnitude of long-lived tangible asset impairments through channels such as financial distress and cash flow volatility. Moreover, climate change awareness, as proxied by the Paris Climate Agreement, lessens this positive relationship. Our results also indicate a short-term impact of climate risks on long-lived tangible asset impairments. The second study (Chapter 3) analyzes the relationship between carbon emissions and audit fees in emerging markets, revealing that climate risks have been priced into audit services. This relationship is strengthened for firms audited by Big 4 auditors or exposed to high litigation risk, while weakened for firms with stronger climate governance. Further, we document that firms in developed countries pay higher audit fees for climate risks as compared to those in emerging markets. The third study (Chapter 4) explores how US firms adjust their climate change disclosures under heightened climate policy uncertainty. We find that climate policy uncertainty is positively associated with firms' disclosure decisions but negatively associated with the extent of climate change disclosures, suggesting a symbolic rather than substantive disclosure response. Moreover, we document significant moderating effects of environmental litigation risk, product market competition, corporate governance, and organizational visibility on this relationship. The results also show that climate policy uncertainty reduces physical risk disclosures but increases transition risk disclosures. This is consistent with the evidence that external uncertainty discourages long-term investments (Jia and Li, 2020). Taken together, these studies underscore the materiality of climate risks, the influence of external uncertainty on corporate reporting practices, and the importance of governance mechanisms in addressing climate risks. The dissertation contributes to the growing literature on sustainability accounting and provides valuable implications for policymakers, standard setters, investors, and managers seeking to enhance corporate resilience and transparency in the face of climate change.

• openaire https://doi.org/10.20381/ruor-31209first seen 2026-06-29 04:55:54