Influences of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Corporate Social Responsibility Information Disclosure

Under the general background of negative impacts brought by economic policy uncertainty (EPU), companies have been motivated to foster a good and healthy company image, arouse high attention from investors, and mitigate crises by initiatively releasing their social responsibility report. To explore the impacts of EPU on corporate social responsibility information disclosure, using the sampled data of Chinese A-share listed companies and EPU indexes during 2008-2017, the impacts of EPU on the voluntariness to release social responsibility report, information quality, and future rating were tested; the intermediate mechanisms in the influence of EPU on corporate social responsibility information disclosure were explored; meanwhile, whether the influence of EPU on corporate social responsibility information disclosure varied with voluntariness/compliance, nature of corporate property right, market system environment, and corporate financial performance was explored. Results show that when the EPU is aggravated, the corporate voluntariness to release a social responsibility report is significantly enhanced, including the information disclosure quality, but the expected future social responsibility rating gradually decline. Operation and sales play a partial mediating role in the effects of EPU on facilitating corporate voluntariness to release social responsibility report and improving the disclosure quality, whereas the return on stocks only plays a partial mediating effect in the influence of EPU on the corporate voluntariness to disclose social responsibility report. Meanwhile, the EPU influences corporate social responsibility information disclosure behaviours differently among the samples with different release requirements, natures of property right, market system environments, and financial performances. The conclusions enriches studies on the microeconomic effects generated by economic policy uncertainties and extends studies regarding macro-factors driving companies to make social responsibility information disclosure decisions, thus providing an important reference for the government to formulate or adjust economic policies and for enterprises to execute information disclosure.