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Do Banks Price ESG Performance? Regional Evidence From Europe and the United States
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Do Banks Price ESG Performance? Regional Evidence From Europe and the United States

Md Nurul Islam Sohel, Abdullah Iqbal, Rizwan Ahmed and Vasileios Pappas
European financial management : the journal of the European Financial Management Association
2026

Abstract

corporate loan pricing ESG performance institutional theory risk mitigation syndicated loan

This study examines whether corporate ESG performance affects syndicated loan spreads and whether the effect differs between Europe and the United States. Using LPC DealScan loans matched with Refinitiv ESG ratings for 2010-2023, we find that higher ESG scores are associated with lower loan spreads; a one-standard-deviation increase implies a 10.64-basis-point reduction. Environmental and social pillars drive the effect more strongly than governance. The negative ESG-spread relation is stronger in Europe and intensifies after the 2015 Paris Agreement, highlighting the roles of risk mitigation and institutional context in bank loan pricing.

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https://doi.org/10.1111/eufm.70078View
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