Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidenceAlexander Dyck, Karl Lins, Lukas Roth and Hannes Wagner Journal of Financial Economics, 2019, vol. 131, issue 3, 693-714 Abstract: 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. Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Institutional investors; Social norms; Culture; Environment (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:131:y:2019:i:3:p:693-714 DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.08.013 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Financial Economics is currently edited by G. William Schwert More articles in Journal of Financial Economics from Elsevier |
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