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This paper examines the protection against systemic risks of the financial and stock performance of firms in receipt of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) awards. The data we obtained from the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) in 2016-2018, comprised of CSR-award-recipient firms (CSR firms) voted for by the Common Wealth and Global Views magazines, for a sample period running from the third quarter of 2017 to the third quarter of 2018. Our empirical results reveal that in terms of their financial performance, as compared to non-CSR-award-recipient (non-CSR) firms, CSR firms failed to demonstrate any better protection against systemic risks (such as the US-China trade war). However, the stock performance of CSR firms clearly provided better protection than that of non-CSR firms; the reason for this observation is assumed to be the higher operational costs faced by CSR firms seeking to continue to pursue their CSR goals when encountering systemic risks. Nevertheless, participation in CSR is found to have an insurance-like effect on firm value, which clearly helps to increase the confidence of investors and reduce stock volatility

By presenting an efficiency wage model embodying intertemporal optimization, this paper proposes a channel to illustrate the willingness of firm's abatement activities. The idea is that worker's efficiency on working is positively related to his stock of health capital, and that abatement will raise the flow of health. The firm thus will treat the abatement expenditure as an environmental investment since it will raise the stock of health capital, and hence the working efficiency in the future. In addition, our model predicts that, when the authorities raise the subsidy on firm's abatement expenditure, the firm will raise both employment and abatement expenditures and lower its wage offer.