Environmental, Social and Governance Disclosures at the Intersection of Micro and Macro Factors: Evidence From Emerging and Developed Markets

ABSTRACT This study examines how macroeconomic and firm‐level financial factors shape environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures across different institutional environments. The study utilises 41,060 firm‐year observations from 14 developed and emerging economies covering the period 2015–2024. The analyses combine firm‐level data from Refinitiv Eikon and Datastream with country‐level indicators from the World Bank Database and the World Uncertainty Index. Panel data analyses supported by Driscoll–Kraay robust estimators reveal that firm‐level characteristics, such as market value and debt levels, exert relatively consistent effects on ESG disclosures across countries, whereas the impact of macroeconomic factors varies significantly by country. The findings also indicate that corporate governance and market supervision shape the functioning of ESG disclosures, whilst carbon emissions do not produce similar ESG responses across all institutional environments. By demonstrating that ESG disclosures are a context‐sensitive outcome shaped by both firm‐level and macro‐level conditions, the study contributes to the ESG literature and provides important implications for policymakers, investors, creditors and business managers.