Share Repurchases, Undervaluation, and Corporate Social Responsibility
研究发现，企业社会责任参与度高的公司更少利用股票低估时机进行回购，以避免财富从卖方股东向持续股东转移，且这一效应在投资者保护强的国家更显著。
This study examines how firms’ socially responsible behavior relates to the timing of their share repurchases, considering share mispricing and the resulting wealth transfer between sellers and ongoing shareholders. We hypothesize that firms with a stronger commitment to societal goals prioritize the interests of all stakeholders more equally than those with a weaker commitment. Therefore, their managers are less likely to take advantage of the wealth transfer from selling to ongoing shareholders, which occurs when the firm is undervalued. Our results show that firms with higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement, ceteris paribus , announce repurchases during periods of lower undervaluation. Additional analyses show that this effect is more pronounced when investor protection is stronger at the country level. Moreover, higher institutional ownership increases the relevance of undervaluation in buyback decisions and the distribution of excess cash is a relatively more important reason for share repurchases when firms display higher CSR engagement. Overall, our findings demonstrate that firms that generally act in a socially responsible manner also refrain from exploiting sellers for the benefit of ongoing investors.