Effects of Carbon Emissions, Environmental Disclosures and CSR Assurance on Cost of Equity in Emerging Markets

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The originality of this article was in researching the relationship between GHG emissions and COE in an emerging market, compared to other studies that analyze the relationship between carbon emissions and accounting reports or the capital markets.

The aim of this paper is to empirically test the relationship between carbon emissions, environmental disclosures, sustainability reporting and the cost of capital of the enterprise (COE), measured by an Ex-Ante proxy model.

Within the specialized literature, certain lack of documentation can be identified, especially regarding certain countries that can be considered representative from the point of view of sustainability and carbon emissions, such as: Great Britain, Germany, France, etc. and which are not found in the observations made by the authors in Table 1. From my point of view, the essential information that gives "weight and importance" to the study is missing. I suggest the authors to reconsider this aspect!

The research methodology is correct and the variables used define the studied model.

There are still some blank spaces (blank lines) in the document that should be removed and rearranged in terms of formatting. I suggest the authors to rectify this situation!

Author Response

"Please see the attachment"

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very interesting article, which addresses a relevant and increasingly crucial issue for the economy and the environment.
These topics are on the agenda and related research is always welcome.
I really liked the work prepared by the authors. I only ask for small corrections to the article. See below for small things you can correct:

1-I don't like to see, at the end of the introduction, the authors describing the sections in which the article is divided. I don't think this information adds anything new because any reader knows that a research article is divided into these listed parts. I think it is redundant, but I leave it to the authors to eliminate it.

2-If the authors enunciate several theories in their Literature Review, it would be good if you specified the basic theory on which the research hypotheses are based. This would make it clearer what the hypotheses are and their support in the literature for future discussion.

3-I would like to see the Durbin-Watson test calculated. This test can be used to test the presence of autocorrelation between the errors or residues of the model. This result will make the article more robust and will be a complement to the tests already performed by the authors (VIF and PEARSON).

4-Line 270 "Table 6 presents the results of our regression model". The results section should start with a short frame and not with the table indication. Please correct.

5-Table 5: Present  R2 values please. I want to see the robustness of the model.

6-I would like to read one or two final paragraphs about the limitations of the study and proposals for future research. This can be written in the conclusions section (final part) or in a new section following the conclusions. This section could be called: "Limitations and Future Research Agenda".

7-Algumas referências (lista final) estão incompletas, por favor corrijam.

All the best and Great 2021 year

Author Response

Please see the attachment 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf