Relative corporate social performance and cost of equity capital: International evidence

This research examines the relationship between firms' corporate social performance (CSP) and the implied cost of equity capital using a sample of 25,938 firm‐year observation from 49 countries during the period from 2002 to 2021. Using estimates of the firms' ex ante cost of equity capital, we examine its relationship with industry‐relative measures of the firms' CSP, its environmental and social pillars and sub‐pillars. We find that increased overall CSP reduces a firm's cost of equity capital up until a point, beyond which the marginal benefits of further CSP investment decrease. We find that the social pillar is the main driver of the reductions in cost of capital, in particular, a firm's performance in relation to its workforce, and that higher performance is increasingly rewarded with a lower cost of capital. Finally, we find that this relationship differs depending on the institutional context, with greater reductions in the cost of capital evident in countries with stronger institutional environments.