Seminar Details

• Speaker: Prof. Rex Wang Renjie (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & Tinbergen Institute)
• Date & Time: Friday, March 7, 2025, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM (GMT+8)
• Venue: Room 405, Floor 4, Building 1, College of Management
• Topic: Do Investors Care about AI's Negative Externalities?
• Abstract: We study this question by examining stock market reactions to the launch of ChatGPT—a pivotal event that sharply increased awareness of AI's transformative potential. Using ESG ratings as a proxy for firms' ability and willingness to adopt AI responsibly, we find that stocks with low ESG ratings underperformed those with high ratings by four percentage points during the two weeks following ChatGPT's release, especially among firms with prior AI investments. A key driver of this underperformance appears to be investors pricing in AI-related risks, such as data privacy issues and human labor concerns. Our findings highlight investors' attention to AI's societal impacts and the role of ESG ratings in identifying firms that are likely to utilize AI more responsibly.