Digests

Zoey Yiyuan Zhou, Douglas Almond
Review of Finance, 2025;, rfaf066, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf066

Voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) are often promoted as a win-win—delivering both climate mitigation and biodiversity protection through nature-based projects such as reforestation, avoided deforestation, and soil carbon enhancement. Yet despite these claims, little empirical evidence exists to confirm whether carbon offset projects actually improve biodiversity outcomes.… Read more...

Jess Cornaggia, Yu-Hsuan (Jennifer) Liang, Peter Iliev, and Qiang Wang
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 391–421, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf051

The article Biodiversity and Local Asset Values investigates the relationship between biodiversity and real estate prices in the United States, providing the first national-scale benchmark of how ecological conditions are capitalized into local asset values.… Read more...

Franklin Allen, Patrick Behr, Riccardo Cosenza, and Eric Nowak
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 321–349, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf059

This study examines how investors react to firms’ engagement in biodiversity-related activities through voluntary carbon offsetting, focusing on forestry carbon projects worldwide.… Read more...

Alexandre Garel, Arthur Romec, Zacharias Sautner, and Alexander Wagner
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 231–272, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf069

Our paper develops, analyzes, and applies new firm-level measures of the extent to which a firm’s business activities depend on ecosystem services.… Read more...

Haoyu Gao, Yuting Huang, and Jingyuan Mo
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 163–192, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf067

In private debt markets, banks mitigate agency conflicts by actively screening and monitoring borrowers. In contrast, dispersed bondholders in public debt markets face significant information asymmetry and lack the incentives and capacity to do so, leaving investors vulnerable to issuer opportunism.… Read more...

Teng Liu, Brook Constantz, Galina Hale, and Michael W Beck
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 87–129, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf061

Climate change is no longer a distant threat. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and floods, are becoming more frequent and more severe.… Read more...

Snorre Gjerde, Zacharias Sautner, Alexander F Wagner, and Alexis Wegerich
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 11–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf050

The loss of natural capital, biodiversity, and ecosystem services is one of the major crises facing humanity. Nature loss can affect companies either directly in their operations or indirectly through their supply chains.… Read more...

Anna Maria C Menichini, and Maria Grazia Romano
Review of Finance, Volume 29, Issue 6, November 2025, Pages 1871–1907, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf039

Leasing is widely used across capital-intensive industries and accounts for a large share of equipment and software financing in both the US and EU. … Read more...

Xiaoqiao Wang, Jing Xie, Bohui Zhang, and Xiaofeng Zhao
Review of Finance, Volume 29, Issue 6, November 2025, Pages 1833–1870, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf044

Can a Simple Nudge Change Corporate Payout Policy?

Conventional wisdom holds that a firm’s dividend policy is a carefully calculated, stable decision reflecting deep strategic intent.… Read more...