We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based on 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings...

Implementation of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become important for all stakeholders and an important part of company’s businesses and reporting. Little research attention is given to the research about CSR from employees' perspective and to the influence of CSR to...

The objective of this paper is to reflect on the consequences of the current economic and financial crisis on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a concept of great importance nowadays. The core approach is the possible link between CSR and the crisis, if both elements can be combined. After...

This paper assesses whether shareholders drive the environmental and social (E&S) performance of firms worldwide. Across 41 countries, we find that institutional ownership is positively associated with E&S performance with additional tests suggesting this relation is causal. Our evidence shows...

Inspired by the LaPorta et al. (1997, 1998) work on comparative corporate governance, we tested the Matten & Moon (2008) framework to analyze differences in cross-national CSR performance. A model was built that questions whether different social, environmental and governance issues are more...

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...

This paper joins the debate on business' role in the implementation of sustainable development and argues that firms are beginning to run more sustainable practices as these are becoming increasingly profitable. It is also argued that such evolution of the economics of social environmental...

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...

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) signals are an important part of factor-based investing strategies as they can stem from the same economic rationales as general factor premiums. Because factors are broad and diversified, building portfolios by jointly optimizing factor exposures with...

This chapter provides an overview of empirical developments and scholarly debates concerning global CSR standards. Although global CSR standards are by no means the totality of CSR, they are arguably its most prominent, visible and well-recognized manifestations. These standards include the UN...