地方官员晋升激励与企业社会责任

Political Promotion and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from China

本文考察地方官员的晋升激励如何在微观层面影响企业社会责任,并进一步分析其内在作用机制。研究发现:第一,晋升激励显著促进了辖区内企业的社会责任表现,为了控制潜在的内生性问题,本文使用降职变量及环境保护工具变量进行检验,结论依然不变;第二,在异常社会责任表现方面,基于人民代表大会调整后的政治晋升激励指标的稳健性检验以及安慰剂检验,均进一步支持了前述论断;第三,基于横截面检验的结果显示,晋升激励对企业社会责任的影响在民营企业、融资约束较高的企业以及高管存在政治关联的企业更显著。同时,地方官员异省就职和前一职务任期,都存在显著的调节作用。整体上,本文验证了晋升激励对企业社会责任表现的促进作用,这对深入理解地方政府如何将政治激励传导给本地微观企业提供了明确的政策参考。

This study examines how local officials’promotion incentives affect corporate social responsibility(CSR)and furtherly analyzes the underlying mechanisms.We find that:First,local officials’promotion incentives significantly promote the CSR performance of local firms.The causality is established with the demotion setting,placebo test,and instrument variables regressions.Second,cross-sectional investigations show that the impact of promotion incentives on CSR is more pronounced in firms not owned by states,firms with financial constraints and firms with political connections.In addition,promotion to other locations and previous tenure of local officials also have significantly mediating effects.Our results are robust to different measures and alternative specifications.Overall,we highlight the political channel of firm’s CSR behaviors from the perspective of career concerns of local politicians,and thus providing clear policy implications to governments who are concerned with CSR.