Climate Change Driving Financial Innovation: The Case of Green Bonds

Abstract

This article deals with green bonds as a structured finance instrument that could help close the clean energy investment gap by addressing private and institutional investors. At first, the green bond universe is structured, with market-labeled green bonds being chosen for further analysis, so that patterns of issues, issuers, and market processes can be identified. Based on monthly bond price data, the authors analyze the drivers of green bond prices and their correlations with prices of other financial assets. Their findings on the risk–return positions that green bonds offer on either a standalone or a portfolio basis are mixed and suggest that factors other than pure economic criteria are responsible for the current tendency toward green bond investments.