The recent financial crisis has led to a loss of trust in the quality of corporate governance worldwide. Among other reforms, the European Commission (EC) currently intends to regulate board diversity (at first gender diversity) by quota as companies did not voluntarily meet the EC's...

This study analyzes the effect that banks' investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR) have on bank performance. I find that banks' investments in CSR have a positive impact on financial performance, measured in terms of both accounting performance and stock market value. However, not...

We explore the effect of board independence on CSR investments during a stressful time, i.e. during the Great Recession. Our results show that independent directors exhibit an unfavorable view of CSR investments during the crisis. Stronger board independence leads to a significant reduction in...

At current, the problems existing within the E.U. banking system are made more visible, probably as a result of European governmental elections taking place in many European countries that cause lobbyists to emphasize problems rather than solutions. This paper sheds some light on the debate and...

Compared to conventional mutual funds, socially responsible mutual funds outperform during periods of market crisis. This dampening of downside risk comes at the cost of under performing during non-crisis periods. Investors with Prospect Theory utility functions would value the skewness of these...

How do changes in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores influence banks’ systemic risk contribution? We document a beneficial impact of the ESG Combined Score and Governance pillar on banks’ contribution to system-wide distress analysing a panel of 367 publicly listed banks from...

During the 2008-2009 financial crisis, firms with high social capital, measured as corporate social responsibility (CSR) intensity, had stock returns that were four to seven percentage points higher than firms with low social capital. High-CSR firms also experienced higher profitability, growth,...

This study examines whether ESG (environmental, social and governance) disclosure influences firm-specific crash risk. Our main research hypothesis postulates that further information disclosure about ESG activities and risks mitigates crash risk by virtue of lower opacity and information...

The purpose of this study is to find out how the positive influence of corporate sustainable development on corporate financial performance alters during the two recent crises i.e. the global recession (2008-10) and COVID-19 (2019-20). The fixed effect modeling of panel data is applied in the...