Does Social Performance Influence Breadth of Ownership?

Jeong-Bon Kim, Bing Li, Zhenbin Liu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study examines the hitherto unexplored question of whether and how a firm's social performance influences the breadth of that firm's share ownership. We predict and find that firms with higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings attract more institutional investors (especially long‐term, low‐stake and green institutional investors) and more individual investors. This finding is consistent with the notion that investors are more interested in firms with higher CSR ratings and thus prefer to hold stocks of such firms. We also find that firms with higher CSR ratings are associated with higher stock liquidity, lower cost of equity capital, more equity and debt issuance, and greater investment, and that sin stocks are associated with a lower investor base, which further corroborates our prediction. Our results are robust to potential endogeneity, the use of alternative model specifications, and an alternative proxy for CSR performance.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1164-1194
JournalJournal of Business Finance & Accounting
Volume45
Issue number9-10
Online published5 Jul 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2018

Research Keywords

  • breadth of ownership
  • corporate social responsibility (CSR)
  • green investor
  • investor base
  • liquidity
  • stock

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