Voluntary Nonfinancial Disclosure and the Cost of Equity Capital: The Initiation of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
研究了企业首次自愿披露社会责任活动能否降低股权资本成本，发现上一年成本高的企业更可能启动披露，且表现优异的企业后续成本下降，并吸引更多机构投资者和分析师关注。
ABSTRACT: We examine a potential benefit associated with the initiation of voluntary disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities: a reduction in firms’ cost of equity capital. We find that firms with a high cost of equity capital in the previous year tend to initiate disclosure of CSR activities in the current year and that initiating firms with superior social responsibility performance enjoy a subsequent reduction in the cost of equity capital. Further, initiating firms with superior social responsibility performance attract dedicated institutional investors and analyst coverage. Moreover, these analysts achieve lower absolute forecast errors and dispersion. Finally, we find that firms exploit the benefit of a lower cost of equity capital associated with the initiation of CSR disclosure. Initiating firms are more likely than non-initiating firms to raise equity capital following the initiations; among firms raising equity capital, initiating firms raise a significantly larger amount than do non-initiating firms.