Do Retail Investors Care about ESG?
Abstract
Using over 4.6 million retail investor queries from China’s investor interactive platforms, we analyze individual investors’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities. Governance overwhelmingly dominates their ESG interests, countering the assumption that retail investors prioritize environmental or social concerns. Retail investors strategically focus on firms facing significant ESG risks, indicating economically rational behavior. Notably, retail investors’ ESG priorities diverge substantially from commercial ESG ratings, particularly concerning environmental and governance dimensions. Textual analysis reveals that most ESG-related queries are financially motivated (85–90%), while ethical and altruistic motives account for 8–12%, and warm-glow motivations are minimal (1–2%). These findings highlight the distinctive governance orientation and financially driven ESG preferences of retail investors, offering important implications for ESG frameworks and behavioral finance theory.