Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence

This paper assesses whether shareholders drive the environmental and social (E&S) performance of firms worldwide. Across 41 countries, institutional ownership is positively associated with E&S performance with additional tests suggesting this relation is causal. Institutions are motivated by...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of financial economics Vol. 131; no. 3; pp. 693 - 714
Main Authors: Dyck, Alexander, Lins, Karl V., Roth, Lukas, Wagner, Hannes F.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.03.2019
Elsevier Sequoia S.A
Subjects:
Companies
Corporate responsibility
Corporate social responsibility
Culture
Environment
Financial economics
Financial institutions
Institutional investments
Institutional investors
Investors
Norms
Organizational effectiveness
Ownership
Social norms
Social responsibility
Stockholders
M14
Corporate social responsibility
G30
Environment
G23
G15
Institutional investors
Social norms
Culture
ISSN:0304-405X, 1879-2774
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper assesses whether shareholders drive the environmental and social (E&S) performance of firms worldwide. Across 41 countries, institutional ownership is positively associated with E&S performance with additional tests suggesting this relation is causal. Institutions are motivated by both financial and social returns. Investors increase firms’ E&S performance following shocks that reveal financial benefits to E&S improvements. In cross section, investors increase firms’ E&S performance when they come from countries with a strong community belief in the importance of E&S issues, but not otherwise. As such, these institutional investors transplant their social norms regarding E&S issues around the world.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0304-405X
1879-2774
DOI:10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.08.013