Publication: The Potential Implications of Economic and Social Rights for Sovereign Debt Investing
Date
2023-05-24
ISSN
Published
2023-05-24
Author(s)
Gratcheva, Ekaterina
Gurhy, Bryan
Wang, Dieter
Brook, Anne-Marie
Clay, K.Chad
Randolph, Susan
Abstract
This paper discusses both the
relevance of economic and social rights (ESRs) for
environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing in the
sovereign debt asset class and how to start incorporating
these rights into the investment process in a practical way.
Many in the investment industry recognize the potential role
that investors can play in influencing a country’s decisions
on environmental and social issues, including human rights.
Investors are also increasingly acknowledging the potential
to influence a sovereign’s actions on social issues, such as
ESRs, given the state’s direct role in providing a pathway
to social advancement for its citizens. The rest of this
paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the
relevance of ESRs to the sovereign debt asset class. Section
3 introduces the income adjusted ESR dataset, and section 4
illustrates the insights that this dataset can provide for
sovereign debt investors. Section 5 provides one practical
example of how sovereign debt investors could use such a
dataset in practice. Section 6 presents our conclusions.
Citation
“Gratcheva, Ekaterina; Gurhy, Bryan; Wang, Dieter; Brook, Anne-Marie; Clay, K.Chad; Randolph, Susan. 2023. The Potential Implications of Economic and Social Rights for Sovereign Debt Investing. Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Insight - Finance. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39841 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”