Vol.:(0123456789) Environmental Economics and Policy Studies https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-020-00287-2 1 3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Does national carbon pricing policy afect voluntary environmental disclosures? A global evidence Mumtaheena Anwar 1  · Sohanur Rahman 2  · Md. Nurul Kabir 3 Received: 21 March 2020 / Accepted: 19 September 2020 © Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies and Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract This paper examines the relationship between institutional pressure of national carbon pricing policy and the voluntary environmental disclosures (VED) of elec- tricity-generating frms. Using a sample of 103 frms from forty-four countries for 2015–2017, we fnd that the implementation of carbon pricing policies at the national level increases the VED quantity signifcantly. Put diferently, frms located in the carbon pricing countries disclose more environmental information than those in non-carbon pricing countries. Besides, we also provide evidence that frms adopt- ing internal carbon reduction strategies disclose more information than frms with no carbon reduction strategies. Overall, our fndings are consistent with the view of the coercive isomorphism branch of the institutional theory that the government’s policy for one aspect of environmental issues (i.e., emissions reduction) may have a pervasive indirect impact on the other environmental aspects (i.e., VED) of the organizations. Keywords Carbon pricing · Emission reduction · Electricity-generating frms · Voluntary environmental disclosures (VED) JEL Classifcation M41 · M48 · K3 · Q56 · Q58 * Sohanur Rahman sohanur.rahman@hdr.qut.edu.au Mumtaheena Anwar mumtaheenaanwar@gmail.com Md. Nurul Kabir nurul.kabir@northsouth.edu 1 Faculty of Business Administration, Eastern University, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 School of Accountancy, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia 3 Department of Accounting and Finance, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh