Peer Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility
利用股东投票中企业社会责任提案以微弱差距通过或未通过的情况，研究发现提案通过后同行企业会跟进采用类似做法，且跟进困难的企业股价下跌，表明这是对竞争威胁的战略回应。
We investigate how firms react to their product-market peers’ commitment to and adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) using a regression discontinuity design approach. Relying on the passage or failure of CSR proposals by a narrow margin of votes during shareholder meetings, we find the passage of a close-call CSR proposal and its implementation are followed by the adoption of similar CSR practices by peer firms. In addition, peers that have greater difficulty in catching up with the voting firm in CSR experience significantly lower stock returns around the passage, consistent with the notion that the spillover effect of the adoption of CSR is a strategic response to competitive threat. Using alternative definitions of peers and examining underlying mechanisms, we further rule out alternative explanations, such as that based on propagation by financial intermediaries. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance department.