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The increasing attention to sustainability issues in finance has brought a proliferation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics and rating providers that results in divergences among the ESG ratings. Based on a sample of Italian listed firms, this paper investigates these divergences through a framework that decomposes ESG ratings into a value and a weight component at the pillar (i.e. E, S, and G) and category (i.e. sub-pillar) levels. We find that weights divergence and social and governance indicators are the main drivers of rating divergences. The research contributes to develop a new tool for analyzing ESG divergences and provides a number of recommendations for researchers and practitioners, stressing the need to understand what is really measured by the ESG rating agencies and the need for standardization and transparency of ESG measurement to favor a more homogeneous set of indicators.

This study has set to compare the usefulness of the regional integration efforts taken by two important economic blocs, SAARC and ASEAN, within the Asian continent to reduce the regional income inequality. Therefore, the existence of income convergence (or divergence) among the SAARC and ASEAN countries is the aim of this study. To investigate whether (or not) there exists income convergence across the SAARC and ASEAN blocs over the period of 1970-2017, $\beta$-convergence, σ-convergence and club convergence estimation methods have been applied. The results confirm the convergence of income across the ASEAN member countries, which is absent for the SAARC member countries at the intra-regional level. Although we considered all countries of the SAARC and ASEAN blocs together in the panel, an evidence of income convergence over the years has been found. The analysis supports the view of trade liberalization and recommends investing in the human capital to narrow down the regional disparity in future. To achieve a favorable impact of Asian rising growth, regional integration is important, for that a collective policy framework at the regional level is needed for both SAARC and ASEAN.