IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/rafpps/raf-09-2018-0184.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does corporate social responsibility affect the cost of equity in controversial industry sectors?

Author

Listed:
  • Abdelmajid Hmaittane
  • Kais Bouslah
  • Bouchra M’Zali

Abstract

Purpose - This paper aims to examine whether corporate social responsibility influences the cost of equity capital of firms operating in controversial industry sectors. Design/methodology/approach - This paper computes the ex-ante cost of equity capital implied in analyst earnings forecasts and stock prices for a sample of 2,006 US firm-year observations belonging to controversial industry sectors (alcohol, tobacco, gambling, military, firearms, nuclear power, oil and gas, cement and biotechnology) during the period 1991-2012. The baseline regression model links CSR score to the implied cost of equity capital (ICC) and controls for firm-specific characteristics, industry factors and economic or market-wide factors. This model enables to capture the differential effect of CSR on ICC when the firm belongs to a specific sector of the controversial industries by adding an interaction term between CSR and the dummy variable representing this belonging. Findings - The findings show two main results. First, CSR engagement significantly reduces the implied cost of equity capital (ICC) in all controversial industry sectors, taken as a group, as well as in each one of these sectors individually. Second, this effect is more pronounced when the firm belongs to the alcohol and tobacco industry sectors. Practical implications - The findings have two important practical implications. First, they should increase managers’ confidence and incentives, in controversial industry sectors, to pursue CSR activities. Second, policymakers can encourage managers to undertake CSR initiatives in controversial industry sectors through tax incentives (e.g. reduce taxes for CSR related investment projects). Originality/value - This paper extends prior studies that investigate the perceptions of capital market participants of firm’s CSR commitment (Sharfman and Fernando, 2008;Goss and Roberts, 2011;El Ghoulet al., 2011;Jo and Na, 2012;Bouslahet al., 2013) by examining the effect of CSR on ICC in the controversial industry sectors. It contributes to the debate around the relevance of CSR in controversial sectors by providing evidence of the reduction effect of CSR activities on ICC in controversial industries and by showing that this reduction impact is more pronounced when the firm belongs to alcohol, tobacco industry sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdelmajid Hmaittane & Kais Bouslah & Bouchra M’Zali, 2019. "Does corporate social responsibility affect the cost of equity in controversial industry sectors?," Review of Accounting and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(4), pages 635-662, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:rafpps:raf-09-2018-0184
    DOI: 10.1108/RAF-09-2018-0184
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RAF-09-2018-0184/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RAF-09-2018-0184/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/RAF-09-2018-0184?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xu, Jiaqi & Zhao, Jingfeng & She, Shengxiang & Liu, Wen, 2022. "Green growth, natural resources and sustainable development: Evidence from BRICS economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Pan, Changchun & Sun, Tiezhu & Mirza, Nawazish & Huang, Yuzhe, 2022. "The pricing of low emission transitions: Evidence from stock returns of natural resource firms in the GCC," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Umar, Muhammad & Mirza, Nawazish & Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Naqvi, Bushra, 2022. "ESG scores and target price accuracy: Evidence from sell-side recommendations in BRICS," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Wang, Erhong & Gozgor, Giray & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar & Patel, Gupteswar & Hu, Guoheng, 2022. "Effects of institutional quality and political risk on the renewable energy consumption in the OECD countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    5. Uz Zaman, Qamar & Ehsan, Sadaf & Hassan, Mohammad Kabir & Javed, Muzhar & Ul Hassan, Syed Iftikhar, 2022. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Zero Leverage," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 56(1), pages 33-46.
    6. Yang, Ann Shawing & Yulianto, Fritz Andryan, 2022. "Cost of equity and corporate social responsibility for environmental sensitive industries: Evidence from international pharmaceutical and chemical firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    7. Wang, Xiang & Yin, Jian & Yang, Yao & Muda, Iskandar & Abduvaxitovna, Shamansurova Zilola & AlWadi, Belal Mahmoud & Castillo-Picon, Jorge & Abdul-Samad, Zulkiflee, 2023. "Relationship between the resource curse, Forest management and sustainable development and the importance of R&D Projects," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    8. Zhang, Can & Liang, Qian, 2023. "Natural resources and sustainable financial development: Evidence from South Asian economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Liu, Kaiyuan & Afzal, Ayesha & Zhong, Yifan & Hasnaoui, Amir & Yue, Xiao-Guang, 2023. "Investigating the resource curse: Evidence from MENA and N-11 countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Li, Shanshan & Long, Fang & Long, Litao, 2022. "Resources curse and sustainable development revisited: Evaluating the role of remittances for China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Su, Chi-Wei & Mirza, Nawazish & Umar, Muhammad & Chang, Tsangyao & Albu, Lucian Liviu, 2022. "Resource extraction, greenhouse emissions, and banking performance," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Wang, Shubin & Li, Jian & Razzaq, Asim, 2023. "Do environmental governance, technology innovation and institutions lead to lower resource footprints: An imperative trajectory for sustainability," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Zhou, Rong & Su, Kaihua & Zheng, Li, 2022. "Natural resources led growth and the role of financial development: Evidence from Next-11 economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    14. Li, Jingpeng & Umar, Muhammad & Huo, Jiale, 2023. "The spillover effect between Chinese crude oil futures market and Chinese green energy stock market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    15. Chang, Lei & Shi, Fanglan & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad & Saydaliev, Hayot Berk, 2023. "Information and communication technologies development and the resource curse," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Chen, Zhonglu & Umar, Muhammad & Su, Chi-Wei & Mirza, Nawazish, 2023. "Renewable energy, credit portfolios and intermediation spread: Evidence from the banking sector in BRICS," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 561-566.
    17. Yongqiang Gao & Miaohan Zhang & Haibin Yang, 2023. "Looking Good in the Eyes of Stakeholders: Corporate Giving and Corporate Acquisitions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(2), pages 375-396, June.
    18. Zhou, Xiaoxiao & Lin, Junjie & Wang, Lu & Huang, Hongyun & Zhao, Xin, 2022. "Wind power resources and China's sustainable development roadmap: Evidence from China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    19. Dai, Zhifeng & Luo, Zhuang & Liu, Chang, 2023. "Dynamic volatility spillovers and investment strategies between crude oil, new energy, and resource related sectors," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    20. Sha, Zhiping, 2022. "Total natural resources, oil prices, and sustainable economic performance: Evidence from global data," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    21. Li, Zhuolun, 2023. "Do geopolitical risk, green finance, and the rule of law affect the sustainable environment in China? Findings from the BARDL approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    22. Lin, Shu & Yuan, Ying, 2023. "China's resources curse hypothesis: Evaluating the role of green innovation and green growth," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:rafpps:raf-09-2018-0184. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.