Corporate Social Responsibility and Economic Performance

Corporate Social Responsibility and Economic Performance

Catherine J. Morrison Paul Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics University of California, Davis One Shields Ave. Davis, CA 95616-8512 Tel: (530) 752-0469 Fax: (916) 752-5614 Email: cjmpaul@primal.ucdavis.edu Donald S. Siegel Department of Economics Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Sage Building-Room 3506 110 8th Street Troy, NY 12180-3590 Tel: (518) 276-2049 Fax: (518) 276-2035 Email: sieged@rpi.edu

January, 2006

We thank participants at the October 2004 International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Nottingham for their insightful comments on a previous version of this paper. The second author also gratefully acknowledges financial support from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Nottingham.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Economic Performance

Abstract We describe some perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR), in order to provide a context for considering the strategic motivations and implications of CSR. Based on this framework, which is based on characterizing optimal firm decision making and underlies most existing work on CSR, we propose an agenda for further theoretical and empirical research on CSR. We then summarize and relate the articles in this special issue to the proposed agenda.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Total Factor Productivity (TFP), Environmental Performance JEL Classification: L15, L21, M14

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Introduction In recent years, academics in fields of several business administration have studied the economic and managerial implications of corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR may be defined, consistent with McWilliams and Siegel (2001), as actions on the part of a firm that appear to advance the promotion of some...