The dynamic causality between ESG and economic growth: Evidence from panel causality analysis

The relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance and economic growth is a controversial topic in economic literature. This paper applies the Granger causality test developed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) with an optimal lag length selection technique proposed by Han et al. (2017) to examine the causality relationship between ESG performance and economic growth for a set of 118 countries over the period 1999-2015. The empirical results show the presence of a bidirectional relationship between environmental and social performance and economic growth, while a unidirectional relationship from governance to growth for all countries. Unlike the clear overall pattern of the full sample results, the empirical evidence for different income groups of countries is mixed.