Asymmetric Information and International Corporate Social Responsibility

We investigate the relation between asymmetric information of insider trades and international corporate social responsibility for U.S. firms listed in the MSCI world index during the period 2004 to 2010. In comparison to current studies, which focus on measuring the interrelation between the cost of capital or firm value and corporate sustainability, our analysis entails the direct relationship between international corporate sustainability and information asymmetry. We measure information asymmetry by the abnormal returns that occur when insiders trade in the stock of their firms. Hence, our investigation is based on a micro level and helps to explain the results at the more aggregated level of cost of capital, and at the fully aggregated level of firm value. In our cross-sectional analysis we found evidence that firms with a higher degree of corporate sustainability spend more efforts in reducing information asymmetry.