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Fossil fuel divestment movements have gained momentum since 2011, aimed at ending fossil fuel use and a move toward a cleaner, affordable, and sustainable energy system, for business and society. The present study investigates the direct impact of fossil fuel divestment announcements on stock prices of firms listed on the United States' stock exchanges. Using an event study and guided by the United Nation's sustainable development goals (SDGs), we test the effects of 116 divestments announcements between 2014 and 2019 on 51 publicly traded fossil fuel companies. Our results suggest that there is a negative effect of these announcements on fossil fuel firm stock prices. Also, we find that the type of fossil fuel firm (coal or oil and gas), the type of divestment (partial, coal only, or full), the timing of the announcement, and the size of the divesting investor have some explanatory power in relation to the (cumulative) abnormal returns following the divestment announcements. While the negative impact on stock prices is not surprising, the reaction from the divested firms after such large divestitures is not consistent with

This study explores recursivity in international accounting standard‐setting, focusing on participation of actors from African countries. While the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation bases its legitimacy claims as a global standard‐setter on a combination of expertise and a formally transparent set of recursive procedures for consultation of stakeholders, empirical results show that participation in the latter is geographically very uneven. The article argues that conceptual mismatch between the standard‐setter's objectives on the one hand and the socio‐economic, cultural and political conditions in many African countries on the other leads to selective recursivity that is problematic for the former's legitimacy and effectiveness. These findings are of wider relevance for debates on global standard‐setting and development.

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