Corporate ESG engagement and information asymmetry: the moderating role of country-level institutional differences

The purpose of this study is to examine: (i) the impact of corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on asymmetric information and (ii) whether this relationship differs for countries with different legal and governance systems. Employing an extensive sample (covering 21 countries from Europe) for an extended time frame (2002-2019), we present evidence that overall corporate ESG performance reduces information asymmetry. Moreover, environmental, social, and governance pillars separately contribute to this significant relationship. Within the ten subcategories of the ESG score, only the emissions, workforce, human rights, product responsibility, and management scores significantly and negatively affect asymmetric information. We also present novel evidence that the inverse relationship between corporate ESG performance and information asymmetry is more pronounced in civil law and stakeholder-oriented countries, but not in common law and shareholder-oriented countries. Our findings demonstrate that firms' country-level institutional context moderates the association between ESG performance and information asymmetry.