Gastos ambientais e folga financeira: value-relevance no mercado acionário brasileiro

Abstract

This study aims to assess whether financial slack affects the value-relevance of environmental expenditure. The thesis is based on the argument that the informational relevance of environmental expenditure is influenced by financial slack, assuming that investors do not evaluate environmental proactivity as something necessarily restricted to corporate charity. It is also examined the relationship between financial slack and environmental expenditure. This study is conducted with public companies listed on the São Paulo stock exchange, Brazil, Bolsa, Balcão (B3) in the period 2008-2018. A sample of 53 companies was considered, totaling 308 observations. The research employs the adapted residual income valuation model. For that, linear regressions were operated with panel data. Dummy variables for sector and year were included in the estimations and four different hypotheses were tested. The data were obtained mainly from the Thomson ReutersTM database. The variables analyzed are environmental expenditure, financial slack in three variants, market value, equity, profit, economic sector, size, age and profitability of firms. The results indicate that: i) there are few firms with environmental expenditures and the impact of these expenditures on revenues is small; ii) the accouting numbers are always value-relevant, suggesting that accounting information leads to a greater level of accuracy in the valuation of firms; iii) environmental expenditures signal future economic costs and lead the market to reduce the assessment of the firms; iv) financial slack is an important component in the valuation of firms with environmental expenditure; vi) companies with environmental expenditure and better financial slack have higher value and firms with a lower level of financial slack show a reduction in value; v) investors can assume financial slack, size, maturity, profitability and sector of companies in the selection of their investment portfolios if there is interest in environmental expenditure. It is concluded that, in terms of valuation in the Brazilian stock market, it seems promising that companies do not report environmental expenditures if the aim is to achieve better pricing, expect if they have a financial situation compatible with the expectations of investors. Apparently, investors’ aversion to environmental expenditures due to its negative effect on company’s value may decrease or be compensated by improving financial slack. At high levels, financial slack improves asset pricing and, at lower levels, reduces value. This confirms the thesis that financial slack works as a vector for indicating the risk of making environmental expenditures, which have high uncertainty regarding the generation of future economic benefits. Thus, the evidence indicates alignment of the Brazilian market with the ideas of the shareholder theory. The conclusion of this thesis is pertinent, assuming the magnitude of the effect of environmental expenditure on revenues earned by firms as a variable of interest.