Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Risk: Theory and Empirical Evidence
构建行业均衡模型，将企业社会责任视为提升产品差异化的投资，发现其能降低系统性风险并提升企业价值，且对高差异化企业影响更强，并用政治关联数据解决内生性问题。
This paper presents an industry equilibrium model where firms have a choice to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. We model CSR as an investment to increase product differentiation that allows firms to benefit from higher profit margins. The model predicts that CSR decreases systematic risk and increases firm value and that these effects are stronger for firms with high product differentiation. We find supporting evidence for our predictions. We address a potential endogeneity problem by instrumenting CSR using data on the political affiliation of the firm’s home state. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.