DOES CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AFFECT FIRM’S INVESTOR BASE?

Abstract

This paper examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects firm‟s relative size of investor base. We test our prediction using a sample of large U.S. sample of 27 749 firm-year observations covering the period from 1991 to 2014. When we use aggregated scores, our findings provide evidence that CSR positively affects firm‟s investor base. When we rely on disaggregated CSR scores, our findings show that while CSR strengths increase firm‟s investor base, CSR concerns have no effect.

Keywords

• corporate social responsibility
• investor base
• risk mitigation
• cost of equity capital. jel classification: g32
• m14