Corporate Social Responsibility and the Board of Directors

What is the relationship between social responsibility and corporate governance? To shed light on this issue, I examine whether and how positive and negative social responsibility events relate to characteristics of a rm’s board of directors. In doing so, I rely on a panel data set of 2417 publicly listed US rms between 1999 and 2007 for which I observe the occurrence of social responsibility events and director characteristics. When boards include a higher fraction of inside and experienced directors, negative events are less frequent. In line with experimental evidence that women are more concerned with altruism, I also document that rms with a higher fraction of women on the board show more pro-social behavior. Finally, when more directors have no equity ownership, positive events are less frequent.

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