The rationale of voluntary corporate initiatives is often explained with preparedness for future regulation. We test this hypothesis for the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the Climate Leaders (CL), two popular voluntary US environmental programs to curb carbon emission that were operating...

Natural resources extraction inevitably imposes environmental injuries including diversion of scarce water away from pressing local needs, disruption of fragile ecosystems, and longer-range and often irreparable harm. These fall most forcefully on the local populations at or near the extraction...

This paper examines whether -- in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements -- shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms' exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate change risks,...