New Findings from Coastal Carolina University Describe Advances in Risk Management (ESG Risk and Agricultural Commodity Integration): Insurance – Risk Management

2026 FEB 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on risk management is now available. According to news reporting out of Conway, South Carolina, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “This study investigates how major agricultural commodities interact with diversified U.S. equity funds, sorted by their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk exposure.”

Our news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Coastal Carolina University: “Using daily Morningstar data on 880 U.S. equity mutual funds, we construct portfolios representing high- and low-ESG-risk equities and examine their linkages with prices for eight agricultural commodities. Applying Fourier-augmented Toda-Yamamoto VAR and LM-GARCH models that accommodate both abrupt and gradual structural breaks, we document clear heterogeneity across ESG risk segments. Low-ESG-risk portfolios exhibit minimal price and volatility spillovers from agricultural commodities, whereas high-ESG-risk portfolios display strong and often bidirectional transmissions-particularly for coffee, corn, cotton, livestock, and soybeans.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “These findings highlight ESG risk exposure as a key dimension shaping commodity-equity integration and provide new evidence on how sustainability-related risks influence equity market vulnerability to commodity shocks.”

For more information on this research see: ESG Risk and Agricultural Commodity Integration. Risks, 2026,14(1):7. (Risks - http://www.mdpi.com/journal/risks). The publisher for Risks is MDPI AG.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/risks14010007.

Our news editors report that more information may be obtained by contacting Alper Gormus, Department of Finance and Economics, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC 29528, United States. Additional authors for this research include Yoav Wachsman, Elif Gormus.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)