Voluntary Disclosure and Market Valuation of Sustainability Reports in Korea: The Case of Chaebols

This paper investigates whether chaebol firms tend to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports more than non-chaebol firms. Based on previous studies documenting chaebols’ tunneling activities at the expense of other shareholders, we anticipate that chaebol firms are more likely to voluntarily disclose their CSR reports even if investors may discount their values because CSR disclosure is an effective means of window dressing. The empirical results support our expectations. We find that chaebol firms are more likely to disclose CSR reports and a chaebol firm’s CSR report disclosure is less evaluated than a non-chaebol firm in the capital market. The result indicates that even if CSR report disclosure may have positive effect on firm value in general, investors may discount the value of chaebol firms’ CSR reports.