主讲人简介：

Joe Hong Zou（邹至庄）教授现任香港大学金融学教授。邹教授的研究成果广泛发表于金融、会计、保险及经济学的国际顶级期刊（如《Journal of Finance》《Journal of Financial Economics》《Journal of Accounting and Economics》等），并九度荣获国际研究奖项，包括美国风险与保险协会研究奖、中国国际金融会议最佳论文奖及亚洲金融协会年会最佳论文奖等。其研究亦发表于《经济研究》等中文核心期刊，累计发表17篇中文论文。

 

讲座简介：

We investigate whether customers value firms’ corporate social responsibility （CSR） performance through their purchasing behavior. Our study utilizes difference-in-differences （DID） analyses, leveraging Section 135 of the 2013 Indian Companies Act as a legal shock. This law change mandates that firms meeting certain size criteria allocate a minimum of 2% of the pre-tax profit to CSR initiatives. We conduct product-level analyses to isolate customer responses from confounding factors such as changes in firms’ product mix. Our results show a significant increase in product-level sales following the implementation of the CSR spending mandate. This effect exists for both business-to-business （B2B） and business-to-consumer （B2C） firms, with a stronger impact on B2C firms. Firms in highly competitive industries and those with lower pre-existing advertising expenditure show more pronounced effects. Despite the increased costs associated with CSR spending, firms experience higher profitability and higher R&D investments post-mandate. We extend the existing literature on voluntary CSR initiatives by shedding light on the product market outcomes of mandatory CSR spending and highlighting a bright side of CSR spending regulations.