*4.1. Summary Statistics*

Since this study aims at identifying the regional characteristics of green bonds, we first delve into the description of our dataset. To this end, we present summary statistics in Table 2, while Figure 2 presents the distribution of issuers per sector and per region. Note that the summary statistics of Table 2 are constructed using data from [19] due to the larger amount of bonds in their database. Summary statistics of the dataset from BNEF are presented in Appendix A, for reference.


**Table 2.** Summary statistics.

Source: Authors' compilation.

There are already several takeaways regarding the regional characteristics of green bonds, based on Table 2. The number of green bonds issued in North America is a little less than three times the amount of bonds issued in Asia-Pacific and Europe combined. However, North American bonds are characterized by their small issued amount, which explains why the region is lagging the Asia-Pacific and Europe in the overall green bonds market, as shown in Figure 1. The dominance of small green bonds also explains the small share of North American bonds in the BNEF sample size. While bonds issued in the Asia-Pacific are comparable in size to their European counterparts, they are characterized by a long-term orientation, as the number of days before reaching maturity is almost twice that of European and North American bonds. Nonetheless, it is essential to note that

Asian bonds are far more diverse in terms of maturity, and to a lesser extent, size, than bonds issued in other regions of the world. Therefore, it might be challenging to reach an overall conclusion on the characteristics of Asian bonds, solely based on an analysis of summary statistics.

**Figure 2.** *Cont*.

Since this study aims to determine whether green bonds present different characteristics based on the region of issuance, we use the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test to check whether distribution in the sample differs, depending on the region. Results of the test are presented in Table 3. The test only compares two samples. Hence, each region was tested against the remaining two. Four variables were used, all of which define some crucial characteristics of bonds, namely issued amount, time to maturity, coupon rate, and rate of return, based on the data provided by BNEF. Regardless of the variable, the results suggest a rejection of the null hypothesis of identical distribution. Each region possesses a unique distribution when it comes to essential characteristics of green bonds.


**Table 3.** Kolmogorov–Smirnov test for equality of distribution.

Source: Authors' compilation. Associated probability in parenthesis. \*\*\* denotes significance at the 1% level.

The sectoral distribution of green bond issuers provides another insight into the particular nature of Asian green bonds. While the share of issuers in Europe, North America, and the rest of the world is quite balanced between the public, utilities, and banking categories, the banking and finance sector share in the Asia-Pacific represents almost two-thirds of the total issuance. Regardless of the region, however, issuance from manufacturers, real estate, construction, and other types of firms is relatively uniform. The imbalance observed in the Asia-Pacific comes from the low shares of the public and utility sectors, with the amount of bonds issued even lower than that of real estate, construction, and other sectors (Figure 2). This observation confirms our initial hypothesis of the dominance of traditional forms of banking in Asia. As the literature review showed, the Asian financial sector is mostly composed of traditional banking institutions [3], but this result confirms that this trend is also passed on to green finance instruments such as green bonds. Due to the risk of overvaluation and maturity mismatch in traditional forms of banking [5], banking dominance likely has a significant impact on the performance of green bonds.
