In traditional bond markets, sovereign bonds provide benchmarks and serve as catalysts for the corporate bond market development. Contrary to the usual sequence of bond market development, sovereign issuers are latecomers to sustainable bond markets. Yet, our empirical study finds that sovereign green bond issuance can have quantitative and qualitative benefits for the development of private sustainable bond markets. Our results suggest that both the number and the size of corporate green bond issuance increase more in a jurisdiction after the sovereign debut. The results are more pronounced in countries with stronger climate policies.  […]