Bank deregulation and corporate social responsibility
研究了美国银行放松管制如何通过增强银行竞争、改善信贷可得性，降低企业为获取利益相关者回报而履行社会责任的动机，导致企业社会责任表现下降。
We show how external credit market development can affect corporate social responsibility. Using a sample of US public firms over the period 1991–2010, we find that bank deregulation negatively affects CSR performance. We argue that deregulation-induced banking competition enhances credit accessibility, thereby reducing firms’ incentives to pursue CSR as a means of securing stakeholder rewards. Empirical evidence shows that firms increase their use of debt financing in response to the intensified banking competition, and these firms experience a more pronounced decline in CSR performance. We alleviate the potential concern that the observed decline in CSR could be attributed to changes in bank monitoring following deregulation. Further analyses find that firms reduce CSR regardless of their material nature, suggesting that the primary driver of CSR could be the trade-off between costs and returns. Overall, our findings shed light on the strategic motives of CSR, which exhibits adaptability in response to business dynamism.