Socio-Economic Factors Affecting ESG Reporting Call for Globally Agreed Standards

Abstract

: The ESG ecosystem has evolved over the years, and macro decisions have had an impact on the implementation and reporting of the ESG Index. This paper aims to first investigate if all the components of the ESG index are equally reported and secondly to identify the impact of socio-economic and political variables on the composite ESG index. To achieve this aim, the authors have utilized macroeconomic variables over the period 1984–2020 for 139 countries from the Refinitiv database and have constructed composite indices based on principal component analysis for the ESG components using a panel fixed effects model with structural breaks. The findings have significant policy implications, emphasizing the importance of globally accepted standards. Finally, by addressing the ESG at a macro level, it provides the context within which to consider the adoption of the ESG ecosystem diachronically, thus providing the backdrop for considering the implementation of the ESG at the micro level.