Common Ownership and Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of common ownership on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that common ownership is positively associated with a firm’s CSR score. The effect is stronger for firms in more competitive industries. We propose a two-stage duopoly game in which CSR serves as a commitment device to expand output aggressively to understand the empirical results. (JEL G30, D21, D22, L13, L21, L22) Received December 10, 2019; editorial decision September 9, 2020 by Editor: Gregor Matvos. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.