MONEY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: CLIMATE LOBBYING AND FIRM ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE

In the U.S. firms spend millions of dollars each year on climate lobbying. Climate lobbying is often seen as “dirty” firms lobbying against environmental regulations; however, my study reveals a subset of major climate lobbying contributors actually have positive environmental performance records. This paper analyzes the relationship between firm-level environmental performance indicators and climate lobbying expenditures. To explore this relationship, I combine a firm level climate lobbying expenditures dataset from the Center for Responsive Politics, financial measures from Compustat and CRSP, and environmental performance indicators from MSCI. My results indicate more climate lobbying among firms that derive substantial revenues from products and services with environmental benefits and those with proactive carbon emission reduction policies/technologie