No 2007/3: On the Economics of Corporate Responsibility

Abstract: This paper seeks to explore the economic mechanisms behind corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a micro-economic model of the firm. The motivation of this study is to shed some light on the potential causes of the observed phenomena of voluntary over-compliance among firms. We consider a few diferent models, both static and dynamic, to investigate how various assumptions about costs and benefits may aspect CSR behavior through a stock of goodwill capital. Our analysis show that in optimum, the profit maximizing firm must balance costs and benefits of CSR. From a cursory look into the CSR literature, we find evidence that some of the hypotheses that can be derived from the models in this paper can be verified empirically.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; dynamics; goodwill; uncertainty

39 pages, November 22, 2007

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