We investigate the effect of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Using a matched sample of 180 US companies, we find that corporations that voluntarily adopted sustainability policies by 1993 - termed as High Sustainability companies - exhibit by 2009 distinct...

This paper evaluates the extent to which the world economy has entered a phase of de-globalisation, and it offers some speculative thoughts on the future of global value chains in the post-COVID-19 age. Although the growth of international trade flows relative to that of GDP has slowed down...

We use the COVID shock to study the direct and interactive effects of several forms of corporate flexibility on short- and long-term real business plans. We find that i) workplace flexibility, namely the ability for employees to work remotely, plays a central role in determining firms'...

Is shareholder interest in corporate social responsibility driven by pecuniary motives (abnormal rates of return) or non-pecuniary ones (willingness to sacrifice returns to address various firm externalities)? To answer this question, we categorize the literature into seven tests: (1) costs of...

This paper analyzes the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the total provision of public goods in a framework in which consumers who may make such voluntary contributions to public goods via CSR are also voters who decide on the level of taxes to finance publicly provided public...

In recent years, impact investors - private investors who seek to generate simultaneously financial and social returns - have attracted intense interest and controversy. We analyze a novel, comprehensive data set of impact and traditional investors to assess how the non-financial characteristics...

We conduct a field experiment in partnership with the largest job platform in Brazil to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices of firms affect talent allocation. We find both an average job-seeker's preference for ESG and a large degree of heterogeneity across...

The growing discussions of impact investing and stakeholder capitalism have increased interest in measuring companies' social impact. We conceptualize corporate social impact as the welfare loss that would be caused by a firm's exit. To illustrate, we quantify the social impacts of 74 firms in...

This study provides an economic analysis of the determinants and consequences of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability reporting. To frame our analysis, we consider a widespread mandatory adoption of CSR reporting standards in the United States. The study focuses on the...

We develop theory and a tightly-linked field experiment to explore the supply side implications of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Our natural field experiment, in which we created our own firm and hired actual workers, generates a rich data set on worker behavior and responses to both...