ESG 결정요인 및 기업가치에 관한 연구 : 경제정책 불확실성과 영업이익 변동성을 중심으로

This study investigates ESG determinants and firm values in terms of economic policy uncertainty and operating profit volatility using the ESG score evaluated by the Korea Corporate Governance Service. First of all, we examine the effect of economic policy uncertainty on ESG activities of companies and understand the meaning of ESG activities in terms of resource constraints theory. Next, we analyze the relation between a firm's ESG activities and operating income volatility to see if the ESG activities allow the company to control its operating income volatility. Last, we examine the association between the ESG activities and firm value by dividing into those with high or low operating income volatility. From the empirical results, we find that ESG activities of companies decrease as economic policy uncertainty increases. This means that if a company face an increased in risk due to exogenous factors such as economic policy uncertainty, the company reduces expenditure on ESG activities in accordance with the resource constraint theory. We also find that companies that carry out more ESG activities can reduce their operating income volatility and ESG activities of companies with high operating profit volatility have more positive effect of improving firm value than others. The contribution of this study is that it empirically verified the effect of economic policy uncertainty on ESG activities of companies and the effect of ESG activities on operating income volatility and firm value.