Firm-specific risk factor analysis of renewable energy stocks

Abstract

This thesis investigates the relationship between firm-specific factors and renewable energy stock returns. For the period 2011-2015, we study 34 international renewable energy companies, operating in five renewable sectors (solar, wind, bio-energy, energy technology and geothermal) by applying panel data method. Inspired by Fama and French (1992) research, we added two new firm-specific variables to the existing variables, to examine the nature of the cross-section relation between firm-specific factors and renewable energy stock returns. Our main finding is that only one (firm size) out of five firm-specific variables used in our regression model is significant and positively associated with the cross-section average returns of the renewable energy companies.