Does Corporate Social Responsibility Deliver Alpha?

Meng-Feng Yen (), Jia-Hui Lin and Yu-Ting Sun
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Meng-Feng Yen: Department of Accountancy and Institute of Finance, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Jia-Hui Lin: Department of International Business Management, Tainan University of Technology, Taiwan
Yu-Ting Sun: Institute of Finance, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Journal of Economics and Management, 2015, vol. 11, issue 1, 23-45

Abstract: In this study, we aim to discover whether the performance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can lead to abnormal returns, i.e., whether the execution of CSR can enhance the generation of abnormal returns. We sort companies according to their ratings in each sector (environmental, social, governance, and overall) and construct high CSR-rated portfolios as well as low CSR-rated portfolios. The ESG rating is contained in KLD STATS. Although the study shows that portfolios of high CSR-rated companies generate higher average returns from 1991 to 2008 relative to their low CSR-rated counterparts, the difference in returns, after controlling for the four-factor model, is not statistically significant. We find no return premium of CSR-efficient stocks against CSR-inefficient stocks. The results from the four-factor model suggest that portfolios of low environmental ratings, low social ratings and low total CSR ratings tend to generate a statistically significant negative alpha. However, the environmentally differenced portfolio is reported to have earned a significant, positive factor-adjusted return in the future 5th year. This result suggests that SRI can be incrementally profitable over long-run horizons.

Keywords: portfolio alpha; corporate social responsibility; ESG ratings; socially responsible investing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G12 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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