Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance: A Quantile Regression Approach

A prominent claim within the literature is that corporate social responsibility-disclosured firms are fundamentally more resilient to financial shocks, relative to firms that take no corporate social responsibility action. To test this, we examine the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information disclosure on financial constraints (FC). Our sample is composed of A-share publicly listed firms from Shanghai and Shenzhen in China during 2013–2017. We find that CSR disclosure influences negatively financial constraints. The quantile regression results also indicate that the influences would more obvious when a company faces stronger financial constraints. Further, CSR disclosure influences negatively financial constraints in financially opaque firms, and the effect of financial opaque on the relationship strengthens when the company faces great financial constraints. After considering the problems of missing variables and endogenous, changing the level of CSR and FC measurement, using 2SLS and two-step GMM methods, the conclusion is still robust. However, the results should not be generalized, since the sample was based on 434 A-share publicly listed firms for 2013–2017. From the perspective of FC, this study contributes to the literature in the field of CSR and expands the empirical research on the economic consequences of CSR. It also can encourage enterprises to voluntarily disclose social responsibility information and it is of great significance to promote the stable development of the capital market and society.