Religiosity and Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

This paper examines the hypothesis that religious firms are more socially responsible. By utilizing a novel measure of religiosity that reflects firm-level adherence to Christian values, we find that religiousness is positively associated with the CSR engagement of large U.S. firms after controlling for county-level religiosity and various firm characteristics. Our results indicate that religious firms have higher social and environmental responsibility scores. The documented positive relationship is particularly strong with respect to product responsibility, emissions reduction, and responsible use of resources. Overall, our empirical findings suggest that faith-driven corporate values may encourage socially responsible behavior.

Keywords: religiosity, religious values, corporate social responsibility

JEL Classification: D22, G30, G34, G39, G41, M10, M14, Z12