Herding Behaviour in ESG Stock Index: Evidence from Emerging Markets

Abstract

This article studies the herding behaviour of environmental, social and governance stock indices in the emerging market based on International Monetary Fund emerging market criteria. We use the daily data as a sample. Cross-sectional absolute deviation is employed to identify the herding behaviour of the investors. The findings report that all the indices do not exhibit herding behaviour, even under the upwards and downwards episodes of the market. When oil price and implied volatility are included in the model, the herding only existed in some samples, such as Egypt and India, during upwards oil price fluctuation and implied volatility, respectively. Meanwhile, Brazil, China and Taiwan also show evidence of herding behaviour during downwards oil price fluctuation. It is due to the large size of the companies with solid governance norm included in the indices, and the information on the companies are widely available. It gives the implication that the investors do not rely on others in the investment decision.