No. 136: Value and Values Discovery in Earnings Calls

We examine how financial analysts discuss value- and values-related climate change concerns in earnings calls. Questions on climate change frequently employ specific, and often quantitative, language, and they are tailored to both the industry in question and periods when such concerns are considered relevant. Compared to other questions, climate change questions are less about value and more about values. Both climate-related question types increased over time, with value related questions becoming relatively more important. Climate change discussions, especially when value-related, increase a stock’s trading volume, reflecting higher investor disagreement about how to interpret the information provided. Being “green” is not an innate trait among analysts as less than 3 percent of the variance in climate change questions is due to analyst fixed effects. Analyst labor markets care about climate change questions: Both question types positively predict analysts’ career trajectories, including promotions and mobility, with value queries showing a more pronounced effect.