This article investigates whether investors consider the reliability of companies’ sustainability information when determining the companies’ market value. Specifically, we examine market reactions (in terms of abnormal returns) to events that increase the reliability of companies’ sustainability information but do not provide markets with additional sustainability information. Controlling for competing effects, we regard companies’ additions to an internationally important sustainability index as such events and consider possible determinants for market reactions. Our results suggest that first, investors take into account the (...) reliability of sustainability information when determining the market value of a company and second, the benefits of increased reliability of sustainability information vary cross-sectionally. More specifically, companies that carry higher risks for investors (e.g., higher systematic investment risk, higher financial leverage, and higher levels of opportunistic management behavior) react more strongly to an increase in the reliability of sustainability information. Finally, we show that the benefits of an increase in the reliability of sustainability information are higher in times of economic uncertainty (e.g., during economic downturns and generally high stock price volatilities). (shrink)

Introduction, Thomas McLaughlinI Literature as Writing1 Representation, W. J. T. Mitchell2 Structure, John Carlos Rowe3 Writing, Barbara Johnson4 Discourse, Paul A. Bove5 Narrative, J. Hillis Miller6 Figurative Language, Thomas McLaughlin7 Performance, Henry Sayre8 Author, Donald E. PeaseII Interpretation9 Interpretation, Steven Mailloux10 Intention, Annabel Patterson11 Unconscious, Franoise Meltzer12 Determinacy/Indeterminacy, Gerald Graff13 Value/Evaluation, Barbara Herrnstein Smith14 Influence, Louis A. Renza15 Rhetoric, Stanley FishIII Literature, Culture, Politics16 Culture, Stephen Greenblatt17 Canon, John Guillory18 Literary History, Lee Patterson19 Gender, Myra Jehlen20 Race, Kwane Anthony (...) Appiah21 Ethnicity, Werner Sollors22 Ideology, James H. KavanaghIn Place of an Afterword--Someone Reading, Frank LentricchiaReferencesList of ContributorsIndex. (shrink)