US firms with low levels of carbon emissions have seen their equity values rise as levels of media alarm over climate change increase, a working paper published by the National Bank of Belgium finds.

In Climate change concerns and the performance of green versus brown stocks, David Ardia et al test the prediction made in a forthcoming working paper by Pastor, Stambaugh and Taylor. That paper predicts, the authors say, “that green firms can outperform brown firms when climate change concerns