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, and sales per employee relative to low-CSR firms, and they raised more debt. This evidence suggests that the trust between the firm and both its stakeholders and investors, built through investments in social capital, pays off when the overall level of trust in corporations and markets suffers a negative shock.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jofi.12505

Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis

机构投资者作为证券市场中的重要力量,越来越受到理论界和实务界的关注。论文对宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院会计学教授布赖恩-布希（Brian Bushee）的论文＂The influence of institutional investors on myopic R＆D investment behavior＂（机构投资者对企业短视研发投资行为的影响,以下简称Bushee（1998））进行评价并提出相关的建议和研究方向。

《The influence of institutional investors on myopic R＆D investment behavior》述评

https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5961&context=lkcsb_research

Socially responsible firms

https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:85431/ATTACHMENT01

Corporate goodness and shareholder wealth

Are Red or Blue Companies More Likely to go Green? Politics and Corporate Social Responsibility*

We examine whether the political leanings of a firm’s stakeholders affect its behavior in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using firm-level CSR ratings from Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini (KLD), we find that firms score higher on CSR when they have Democratic rather than Republican founders, CEOs, and directors, and when they are headquartered in Democratic rather than Republican-leaning states. We estimate that CSR costs Democratic-leaning firms approximately $20 million more in annual SG&A expenses than Republican-leaning firms ($80 million more within the sample of S&P500 firms), representing about 10% of net income. We also show that changes in firm CSR policies (KLD “strengths”) are negatively associated with future stock returns, changes in institutional ownership, and changes in ROA, suggesting some loss of firm financial value in exchange for any direct value benefits to stakeholders from social responsibility.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2134883_code486990.pdf?abstractid=1785562&mirid=1

Are Red or Blue Companies More Likely to Go Green? Politics and Corporate Social Responsibility

Do political values influence investing? We answer this question using data on the political contributions and stock holdings of US investment magers. We find that mutual fund managers who make campaign donations to Democrats hold less of their portfolios (relative to non-donors or Republican donors) in industries that are deemed socially irresponsible (e.g. tobacco, guns and defense, natural resources). Although a higher fraction of Democrat-run mutual funds are socially responsible (SRI), this result holds for non-SRI funds and after controlling for other fund and manager characteristics. The effect is more than one-half of the under-weighting observed for SRI funds. Using the KLD score to measure firm responsibility, we find that Democrat managers also tilt towards firms with positive social features such as excellent employee relations and clean environmental records. We document similar results among a smaller sample of hedge fund managers, suggesting that lax corporate governance in the mutual fund industry is not the main driver of our results. We discuss how political values influence investing and the implications of our findings for the growing SRI movement and stock prices. A simple calibration shows that the pricing implications of Democrat managers' preference for social responsibility are similar in magnitude to the S&P 500 inclusion effect.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1573098_code863755.pdf?abstractid=1214382&mirid=1&type=2

Red and Blue Investing: Values and Finance

http://www.simon.rochester.edu/faculty_research_pdf/leonard.kostovetsky/intellcont/rblue-1.pdf

Red and blue investing: Values and finance

We analyze a dataset of 2390 completed ICOs, which raised a total of $12 billion in capital, nearly all since January 2017. We find evidence of significant ICO underpricing, with average returns of 179% from the ICO price to the first day's opening market price, over a holding period that averages just 16 days. After trading begins, tokens continue to appreciate in price, generating average buy-and-hold abnormal returns of 48% in the first 30 trading days. We also study the determinants of ICO underpricing and relate cryptocurrency prices to Twitter activity.

Leonard Kostovetsky

Papers

Are Red or Blue Companies More Likely to go Green? Politics and Corporate Social Responsibility*

Are Red or Blue Companies More Likely to Go Green? Politics and Corporate Social Responsibility

Red and Blue Investing: Values and Finance

Red and blue investing: Values and finance

Digital Tulips? Returns to Investors in Initial Coin Offerings