Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments October 14, 2022 erstellt
Beschreibung:
Do corporate social responsibility (CSR) metrics accurately reflect firms’ material social impacts? Analyzing small business lending during the Great Recession, we find that banks assessed to be socially responsible exerted higher social costs by actively pulling back funds from those in need of liquidity. These banks paid more expenses on immaterial but conspicuous issues during the boom, which helped them earn favorable assessments. Once the downturn arrived, they had less slack with higher operating leverage and squeezed their loans. Our results suggest that social welfare could paradoxically decrease as CSR attracts public attention without reliable metrics for firms’ social impacts