Peiris and Evans (2010)
Peiris, Dinusha and John Evans. “The Relationship Between Environmental Social Governance Factors and U.S. Stock Performance.” Journal of Investing, Fall 2010.
From the authors' abstract: "This article [analyzes] the impacts on stock valuation and operating performance of U.S. listed companies. Using a multifactor framework, [it] provides evidence of a significant positive relationship between particular ESG rating criteria and both return on assets and market-to-book-value measures, supporting the theory that Corporate Social Performance is positive for Corporate Financial Performance. Analysis also shows that employment conditions are a more relevant influence than other stakeholder criteria and that a company’s involvement in more general non-stakeholder-related social issues contributes negatively to both operating performance and stock return."