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The capital market in China has progressed rapidly within the realm of ESG and sustainability. This study investigates whether and how ESG investing works in China. The portfolio-level analysis shows that both high- and low-level ESG portfolios can earn higher abnormal returns, which implies a non-linear relationship between ESG and portfolio excess returns. In stock-level analysis, the effect of ESG on future stock returns varies by pillar and sector. Governance and social pillars work in opposite directions to predict returns. In the secondary (tertiary) sector, higher ESG scores predict lower (higher) returns. Furthermore, we find that higher ESG performance is associated with worse future profitability, which impairs firm value, and lower cost of equity capital, which increases firm value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the relationship between agricultural commodities and crude oil has become increasingly close with the promotion of biofuel policies. This study examines the dynamic correlation between global crude oil futures and seven agricultural commodity futures by applying the consistent dynamic conditional correlation and dynamic equicorrelation models. The empirical results show that the dynamic correlation between the global crude oil futures market and China's agricultural futures market is weak compared to the global agricultural futures market. In particular, soybean oil has the strongest correlation with crude oil, while Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) corn and Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange wheat have the weakest correlation with crude oil. There is an indirect linkage between crude oil futures and DCE soybean meal and DCE soybean oil. Moreover, the dynamic correlation between crude oil and agricultural commodities increased during the financial crisis, the novel coronavirus (COVID‐19) epidemic, and the crude oil crash crisis. Brent crude oil has a stronger co‐movement with China's agricultural commodities than West Texas Intermediate crude oil and can better hedge the risk of agricultural commodities. The findings of this study provide some insights into the contagion risk management of crude oil futures and agricultural futures markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]