Corporate sustainability and risk management

In the past few years, environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations have emerged as an integral part of the decision-making process of investors, managers, and policymakers. The UK government has placed ESG investing amongst the central pillars of its Green Finance Strategy.

The aim of this project is to accurately measure firms’ attitudes towards green investment and sustainable finance, and the associated impact on their corporate outcomes. We will further try to understand the driving factors of certain corporate sustainability attitudes and how the materiality concept can be integrated to improve long-run performance and risk management.

This project relates to the Sustainable Futures pathway as part of the South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP).

Project lead

Dr Stylianos Asimakopoulos

Contact

For an informal discussion about this area of research contact s.asimakopoulos@bath.ac.uk

The effect of the UK minimum wage on prices

In his 2021 Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the National Living Wage would rise by 59p on 1 April 2022. This is the largest single increase in the history of the UK minimum wage.

There is a consensus among researchers that the minimum wage has not had a significant effect on employment levels in the UK, raising questions about how firms are able to accommodate the cost increases it creates.

US evidence suggests that some firms are able to pass on almost all of the costs associated with the minimum wage to consumers in the form of higher prices. However, researchers have not examined this possibility in the UK.

This project will use menu prices from a large UK pub chain to examine whether the 2022 minimum wage hike raises prices, and how this varies across high-wage and low-wage locations and across labour-intensive and non-labour-intensive items on the menu.

The results of the study could help policymakers as they attempt to evaluate the effects of future minimum wage increases on the labour market and the wider economy.

This project relates to the Sustainable Futures pathway as part of the South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP).