Conference Agenda

This paper investigates corporate carbon emissions, voluntary carbon market (VCM) participation, and environmental disclosures. Using a global dataset of over 2,000 companies, we examine if the largest emitters are also the most active offset purchasers, and if VCM participation correlates with emissions reductions. While higher emitters do purchase more offsets, VCM participation does not correlate with reduced emissions, suggesting offsets may legitimize continued emissions rather than drive decarbonization. Furthermore, higher environmental scores correlate with higher emissions, indicating potential greenwashing. This study challenges the assumption that VCM participation translates to effective climate action, highlighting the need for greater scrutiny and transparency.

Objective: This paper explores the determinants underlying the adoption of national financial education strategies. It seeks to explain the factors driving policy implementation across countries.

Theoretical framework: Financial education is a tool to increase the financial literacy of consumers and investors. In 2005, the OECD adopted the Recommendation of the Council on Principles and Good Practices for Financial Education and Awareness, which includes public policies for financial education. In 2012, the OECD International Network on Financial Education developed the High-Level Principles for National Strategies for Financial Education. As pointed out by the Recommendation of the Council of the OECD on Financial Literacy of 2020, more than 70 countries worldwide are designing or implementing strategies for financial education.

Methodology: Using a manually constructed database of 701 observations from 37 OECD countries over the period 2004-2024, we examine how formal and cultural factors influence the adoption of national financial education strategies.

Results/Implications: Formal institutions, in particular legal origin, do matter: common law countries tend to adopt more national financial education policies. Informal cultural factors, such as societies' uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation, also positively influence the adoption of these strategies. These findings support the importance of institutions in financial education policies.

Retail investors' attention to firms plays a crucial role in financial markets as it may help enhance market efficiency, price discovery, or liquidity, among others. However, retail investors often lack resources for extensive research, leading them to focus on more visible stocks. This paper provides new insights into market behaviours and the mechanisms driving investor attention by examining the impact of firms’ information opacity on the attention they receive from retail investors. We proxy opacity by the discrepancies across rating agencies on the ratings assigned to firms’ debt and explore its effects on the attention level and the degree of sustained attention computed from the daily Google Search Volume Index. Results document that retail investors are less interested in more opaque companies, which experience greater fluctuations in the attention they receive. Moreover, opacity shocks exacerbate the instability of attention. Our evidence highlights the importance of transparency for firms in attracting retail investors.