Does green sentiment really exist?

Abstract

I set out to explore if market-wide investor sentiment, as defined by (Baker & Wurgler, 2006) can be used as a partial explanation for green sentiment. Recent literature concludes that investors have a preference for greener investments when there is heightened attention to climate change topics, and that this has been one of the main drivers of the outperformance of greener stocks in recent years. I find that green sentiment, as proxied through Google searchvolume and media intensity, has a significant and positive correlation with investor sentiment.I also find that when controlled for investor sentiment, the contribution of green sentiment towards the outperformance of greener stocks is reduced. This means that market-wide sentiment serves as a partial explanation to green sentiment and the outperformance of greener stocks. However, it does not completely exclude the existence of the former.

Date of Award	27 Jun 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Thomas David (Supervisor)