US. Does ESG Matter in Public Finance? It Depends

In case you’ve tuned it out, there’s a battle underway between proponents of “sustainability” analysis of corporate business practices and those who favor “drill, baby, drill” and “anti-woke” free market profitability metrics and political slogans. The debate worked its way up to Capitol Hill, where Congress passed and President Biden vetoed a bill to stifle retirement account fiduciaries’ consideration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in their funds’ investments. At the state level, meanwhile, a number of oil-rich states...