Title: Corporate negative sentiments and the environment during a pandemic: evidence from quarterly earnings conference calls

Authors: Jorge A. Romero

Addresses: College of Business and Economics, Towson University, 8000 York Rd., Towson, Maryland, USA

Abstract: Motivated by the rising number of COVID-19 cases that were reported around December 2019, firms started to show concerns about the adverse effects on their business operations. This study uses a COVID-19 variable of negative sentiments that is a text-based measure of the sentiment associated with the spread of COVID-19 that the US publicly traded firms disclose in their quarterly earnings conference calls. This study provides novel data and the first empirical evidence on the extent to which the COVID-19 negative sentiments disclosed by firms are positively correlated with a reduction in CO₂ emissions. This study provides new insights and looks into the positive aspect of this pandemic, a greener environment due to a reduction in CO₂. Results show that firms' concerns in their quarterly earnings conference calls are negatively correlated with CO₂ emissions, fuel consumption, real gross domestic product and the US manufacturing production index.

Keywords: quarterly earnings; conference calls; CO₂ emissions; pandemic; COVID-19.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2022.125018

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2022 Vol.22 No.2, pp.99 - 117

Received: 06 Jan 2022
Accepted: 06 Mar 2022
Published online: 22 Aug 2022 *

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