| dc.description.abstract | The importance of Environmental, Social, and Governance concerns is rising
economic environment. Even though debt is a crucial financial instrument for Southeast
Asian businesses, there hasn't been as much research on how ESG scores affects debt
financing and associated expenses as there has been on the impact on company
performance and profitability. The effect of ESG scores on COD for companies in five
Southeast Asian nations is examined in this study. Based on 1,130 observations findings
spanning from 2013 to 2022, the author concludes that social responsibility and all ESG
scores are statistically significant negative. Using a variety of estimate techniques,
including OLS, FEM, REM, GLS, and GMM model, the study findings are quite reliable.
As a result, ASEAN companies with higher ESG scores have lower debt costs. When
comparing the ESG index to earlier research, the social component has a notably
detrimental effect on debt costs. Furthermore, this study demonstrates a negative
correlation between the cost of debt and social and governance scores. These results imply
that when making financing decisions, creditors also give careful consideration to a
company's standing in the community and the reliability of its management team. All things
considered, this study's findings support the theoretical data suggesting that socially
conscious actions help to reduce agency issues and raise corporate transparency, which in
turn lowers the COD for companies business ventures | en_US |
