Florian Heeb

Research

Publications

1. Green Investing and Political Behavior (opens in a new tab)

   with Julian Kölbel, Stefano Ramelli & Anna Vasileva

   Review of Financial Studies, 2026, 39(9), 2769–2820

   The opportunity to invest in green funds does not reduce individuals' support for climate regulation.

2. Do Investors Care About Impact? (opens in a new tab)

   with Julian Kölbel, Falko Paetzold & Stefan Zeisberger

   Review of Financial Studies, 2023, 36(5), 1737–1787

   Editor's Choice and lead article · FIR-PRI Finance & Sustainability Award for Best Published Article

   Investors are willing to pay for investments with impact, but they do not pay more for greater impact.

3. Can Sustainable Investing Save the World? Reviewing the Mechanisms of Investor Impact (opens in a new tab)

   with Julian Kölbel, Falko Paetzold & Timo Busch

   Organization & Environment, 2020, 33(4), 554–574

   Policy impact: cited in the draft EU Ecolabel Criteria for Retail Financial Products

   Literature review on the impact of sustainable investing, distinguishing between company impact and investor impact.

Working Papers

1. Index Provider Engagement and Climate Action: A Field Experiment (opens in a new tab)

   with Julian Kölbel

   In a field experiment with a global sample of large firms, we show that engagement by an index provider can drive corporate climate action.

   A visual exploration of the paper Dear Chair An interactive companion to the paper. Re-deal the 300 letters and watch the paper's 2,000 randomization-inference draws pile up, see the effects on targets and emissions unfold quarter by quarter, and flip robustness switches to try to break the results. Open Dear Chair (opens in a new tab)

2. Beliefs About the Climate Impact of Green Investing (opens in a new tab)

   with Julian Kölbel & Camilla Weder

   Most academic experts do not believe that a typical green fund has a meaningful climate impact; the vast majority of retail investors do.

3. The Market for Voluntary Carbon Offsets (opens in a new tab)

   with Florian Berg, Marco Ceccarelli, Alexey Ivashchenko, Roberto Rigobon & Remco Zwinkels

   Prices for voluntary carbon credits are highly dispersed and seem not to be primarily driven by their climate impact.

4. The Economic Impact of ESG Ratings (opens in a new tab)

   with Florian Berg & Julian Kölbel

   Changes in ESG ratings affect mutual fund holdings and stock returns, but there is no evidence of real-world impact.

5. Mapping Investor Impact: Mechanisms and Moderators

   with Timo Busch, Eric Pruessner, Brigitte Bernard-Rau, Florian Berg, Ben Caldecott, Johannes Freiling, Andreas Hoepner, Ioannis Ioannou, Christian Klein, Nicola Koch, Julian Kölbel, Mickaël Mangot, Jan Nahrstedt, Bert Scholtens, Judith Ströhle, Mario La Torre & Olaf Weber

   Revise and resubmit at SN Business & Economics

   A systematic review of the mechanisms and moderators of investor impact.

Publications in Environmental Sciences

1. Organic Micropollutants in Rivers Downstream of the Megacity Beijing: Sources and Mass Fluxes in a Large-Scale Wastewater Irrigation System (opens in a new tab)

   with H. Singer, B. Pernet-Coudrier, W. Qi, H. Liu, P. Longrée, B. Müller & M. Berg

   Environmental Science & Technology, 2012, 46(16), 8680–8688

   Wastewater from the megacity Beijing carries a wide range of organic micropollutants into the downstream rivers used for irrigation.

Practitioner & Policy Writing

2025

Integrating investor impact is key to effective sustainability regulation (opens in a new tab)

SAFE Finance Blog

How can the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation drive real impact? (opens in a new tab)

With Nikolai Badenhoop, Tatiana Farina & Loriana Pelizzon · SAFE Finance Blog

2022

A-B-E-G-L-N: how adding six letters to SFDR can make it 'work' (opens in a new tab)

With Harald Walkate · illuminem

What fake suede and the future of impact investment have to do with one another (opens in a new tab)

With Harald Walkate · illuminem

MiFID misses mark: ESG motivations matter (opens in a new tab)

With Harald Walkate · illuminem

2021

Machen nachhaltige Anlagen die Welt besser? (opens in a new tab)

With Julian Kölbel & Falko Paetzold · Die Volkswirtschaft

Does impact need to be measurable to count as impact? (opens in a new tab)

LinkedIn Blog

2020

The Investor's Guide to Impact (opens in a new tab)

With Julian Kölbel

ESG ist nicht gleich Impact (opens in a new tab)

With Timo Busch, Sarah Carroux, Julian Kölbel & Falko Paetzold · Absolut Impact

Sustainable Investing Is Booming — But Where Is the Impact? (opens in a new tab)

Milken Institute Review

Teaching

• since 2025

  Sustainable Finance

  Goethe University Frankfurt · Research seminar

• since 2025

  Impact Investing

  Goethe University Frankfurt · M.Sc. seminar

• since 2026

  Sustainable Finance: Impact, Risk, and Compliance

  Goethe Business School · part-time Goethe MBA (with Nikolai Badenhoop)