This paper provides an empirical investigation of the hypothesis that companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to offset corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We find general support for the relationship that when companies do more “harm,” they also do more “good.” The empirical analysis is based on an extensive 15-year panel dataset that covers nearly 3,000 publicly traded companies. In addition to the overall finding that more CSI results in more CSR, we find evidence of heterogeneity among industries, where the effect is stronger in industries where CSI tends to be the subject of greater public scrutiny. We also investigate the degree of substitutability between different categories of CSR and CSI. Within the categories of community relations, environment, and human rights—arguably among those dimensions of social responsibility that are most salient—there is a strong within-category relationship. In contrast, the within-category relationship for corporate governance is weak, but CSI related to corporate governance appears to increase CSR in most other categories. Thus, when CSI concerns arise about corporate governance, companies seemingly choose to offset with CSR in other dimensions, rather than reform governance itself.

This study explores when wholly owned subsidiaries outperform joint ventures with local partners. In order to avoid the endogeneity problem inherent in foreign subsidiaries' operating mode decisions that might confound performance measurement, we employ the propensity score matching method, along with the difference‐in‐differences approach, and compare the performances of joint ventures turned wholly owned subsidiaries vis‐à‐vis continuing joint ventures. Based on foreign subsidiaries' financial data in China for 1998–2006, we find strong evidence that converted wholly owned subsidiaries outperform continuing joint ventures in industries characterized by high levels of intangible assets such as technology or brand, after controlling for factors that may affect the conversion decision. This finding is consistent with the prediction of transaction cost theory. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We are grateful for helpful comments and discussions while presenting earlier versions of this paper at Duke, Michigan, UCLA, Vanderbilt, and the 2010 AEA annual meeting. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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This study explores when foreign subsidiaries outperform comparable local firms by evaluating the performance of local firms acquired by multinationals vs continuing local firms. This comparison allows us to single out foreign ownership effects. We employ the propensity score matching method and difference-indifferences approach in order to control for the endogeneity problem inherent in multinational firms' acquisition decisions. We find strong evidence that foreignacquired local firms outperform comparable local firms in China, especially when the foreign firm acquires local target firms with higher absorptive capacity or with modernized ownership structure.