Topic: Carbon Pricing Policies and Executive Compensation Tied to ESG Performance报告人：David Samuel

Date & Time: 10:00-11:30  May 22, 2026

Venue: Room 245, Quanxue Building

Organizers: School of Accounting, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics; Liaoning Province Capital Market Finance and Accounting Graduate Innovation and Academic Exchange Center

Abstract：

Using an international sample of public firms, we exploit the staggered introduction of carbon pricing policies—mechanisms such as carbon taxes that impose a cost on emissions—and find that these policies increase the likelihood that firms adopt Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance measures in executive compensation contracts. The results support the following mechanism. Reducing emissions mitigates climate risk and enhances long-term shareholder value but imposes short-term earnings pressure on managers, creating misaligned incentives. Carbon pricing intensifies this agency conflict because carbon prices typically escalate over time, thereby increasing the long-term benefits of emissions reductions for shareholders. Tying compensation to ESG performance aligns managerial incentives with emissions reduction. We further document that the effect of carbon pricing on the adoption of ESG-based compensation is more pronounced in countries with more stringent carbon pricing regimes and in firms with higher institutional ownership, consistent with greater sensitivity to long-term value and stronger monitoring..

Introduction of Speaker:

 David Samuel, Assistant Professor at Singapore Management University and a Research Fellow at the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin‑Madison in 2022 and also holds a doctorate from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna). He was a Visiting Scholar at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. His research focuses on corporate taxation and international taxation, and his work has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, and the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy.