Responsibility
Working Paper
Leviathan Inc. and Corporate Environmental Engagement
In a 2010 report, The Economist called the resurgence of state-owned mega-en- terprises, especially those in emerging economies, “Leviathan Inc.”, and criticized their poor governance and e ciency. We show that stateowned enterprises engage more...Read more
Governance and Stakeholders
Economic models routinely assume firms maximize shareholder wealth; however common law legal systems only require that officers and directors pursue the interests of the corporation, leaving this ill-defined. Economic arguments for shareholder...Read more
Shareholder Engagement on Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance
We study investor activism promoting environmental, social and governance (ESG) improvements using a proprietary dataset. Targets have a higher market share, analyst coverage, stock returns, and liquidity. The engagements lead to ESG rating...Read more
The Separation of Corporate Law and Social Welfare
A half century ago, corporate legal theory pursued an institutional vision in which corporations and the law that creates them protect people from the ravages of volatile free markets. That vision was challenged on the ground during the 1980s,...Read more
An Institutional Theory of Corporate Regulation
The regulation of corporate behaviour has persisted in spite of peaks of neo-liberalism in many developed jurisdictions of the world, including the UK. This paradox is described as ‘regulatory capitalism’ by a number of scholars. Of particular...Read more
Shareholder Sustainability Activism in the Netherlands
Corporations play a crucial role in achieving a sustainable world. In achieving corporate sustainability, the current regulatory frameworks generally emphasize the role of the corporate board, but today’s media suggest that institutional...Read more
Socially Responsible Corporate Customers
Using corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings of 34,117 corporate customer-supplier relationships from 50 countries worldwide, we find that customers' CSR ratings are associated with suppliers' subsequent CSR performance, but not vice versa...Read more
The Bond Market Benefits of Corporate Social Capital
We investigate whether a firm’s social capital, and the trust that it engenders, are viewed favorably by bondholders. Using firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to proxy for social capital, we find...Read more
How Investors Can (and Can't) Create Social Value
Most investors have a single goal: to earn the highest financial return. These socially-neutral investors maximize their risk-adjusted returns and would not accept a lower financial return from an investment that also produced social benefits. An...Read more
The relationship between public listing, context, multi-nationality and internal CSR
Are MNEs more socially responsible, and where is this more likely to occur? Are rms less responsible in emerging or transitional economies, and what impact does the dominant national corporate governance regime have? We explore the association...Read more
Corporate donations and shareholder value
Do corporate donations enhance shareholder wealth or reflect agency problems? We address this question for a global sample of firms whereby we distinguish between charitable and political donations, as well as between donations in cash and in...Read more