Topic: Is Doing Good a Habit? The Wenchuan Earthquake and Corporate Social Responsibility
Time: 14:00 PM-15:30 PM, June 5, 2025
Location: Room A1048, New Main Building
Guest: Nie Huihua, PhD in Economics from Renmin University of China, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Economics, Harvard University (studied under Professor Oliver Hart, 2016 Nobel Laureate in Economics). Currently, he is a Professor at the School of Economics, Renmin University of China, and concurrently serves as Associate Editor of the internationally renowned SSCI journal *China Economic Review*.
Abstract:
It is commonly believed that market characteristics and CEO’s personal characteristics affect corporate CSR/ESG engagement. Unlike the existing literature, this paper investigates CSR/ESG motivation through the habit formation perspective. In 2008, a great earthquake struck Wenchuan, China, and the central government mandated 19 provinces to provide counterpart support for affected counties. Using the difference-in-differences (DID) approach, we find that firms involved in reconstruction assistance exhibit higher CSR scores afterwards. Further analyses reveal that the assistance experience cultivates the formation of CSR habits through managers. Once a firm replaces the chairman or CEO, the CSR improvement effect diminishes by half. Conversely, firms without assistance experience achieve higher CSR performance when appointing new executives with such experience. Moreover, we identify positive intra-city spillovers, but no intra-industry spillovers are observed. Our research highlights the role of government-enterprise collaboration in fostering corporate sustainable practices.
