Biodiversity conservation incurs substantial economic costs. We investigate how financial markets price the risks such costs induce, exploiting the “Green Shield Action,” a major regulatory initiative launched in China in 2017 to enforce biodiversity preservation rules in national nature reserves. While improving biodiversity, the initiative led to significant increases in bond yields for municipalities with these reserves. The effects are driven by increases in local governments’ fiscal risk due to expected increases in transition costs resulting from shutting down illegal economic activities within reserves and additional public spending on biodiversity. Investors show little non-financial consideration towards endeavors counteracting biodiversity loss.

本文利用2015-2021年的公司层面数据，将链上数据与公司基本面以及资产估值联系在一起。这是一项开创性的、大样本的研究。我们发现，季度同比的区块链数据增长（BDG）包含了公司价值信息，能够预测公司资产增长、销售增长、ROA、标准化意外盈利（SUE）以及专利创新产出。BDG也可以预测股价回报，尤其是在未来盈余公告发布的时间段。基于此构建的BDG多空组合能产生年化10.56%的回报。BDG的预测能力是稳健的，在考虑了行业、地区以及其他短期预测因子之后；BDG的预测能力在国际样本中同样能展现出来。本文进一步讨论了背后的经济机制（例如，持续信息披露以及信息不对称的减少）。异质性分析显示，信息不对称更高、披露质量更低、行业竞争更强、公众信任更低的公司，能从区块链以及链上数据增长中获得更多的收益，主要体现在公司运作和融资方面。