We investigate whether an environmental social governance (ESG) disclosure moderates the relation between ESG controversies and analyst forecast accuracy. The previous literature has shown that ESG controversies increase uncertainty about a firm's future prospects, while ESG disclosure decreases this uncertainty. We therefore take the next step and integrate ESG controversies, ESG disclosure and uncertainty into one model. Our study is based on 8,369 firm-year observations across 51 countries from 2008 to 2017, containing data from RepRisk, Bloomberg and the Institutional Brokers' Estimate System. We find that analyst forecast errors are generally higher for firms with higher exposure to ESG controversies. More importantly, we establish ESG disclosure as a moderator that mitigates the strength of the relation between ESG controversies and analyst forecast errors. Additionally, we identify that the most important pillar for the relation derives from social controversies and disclosure.

我们调查环境社会治理 (ESG) 披露是否会缓和 ESG 争议与分析师预测准确性之间的关系。先前的文献表明，ESG 争议增加了公司未来前景的不确定性，而 ESG 披露降低了这种不确定性。因此，我们采取下一步措施，将 ESG 争议、ESG 披露和不确定性整合到一个模型中。我们的研究基于 2008 年至 2017 年对 51 个国家/地区的 8,369 个公司年度观察，其中包含来自 RepRisk、彭博社和机构经纪人估计系统的数据。我们发现，对于 ESG 争议风险较高​​的公司，分析师的预测误差通常较高。更重要的是，我们将 ESG 披露确立为缓和 ESG 争议与分析师预测错误之间关系强度的调节因素。此外，我们发现这种关系最重要的支柱来自社会争议和披露。