Despite the existing vast literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is a lack of research on the determinants of CSR categoriesenvironment, employees, community, and governance. Why do some firms dedicate more effort to community, while others focus on environment or employees? We address these issues with special attention to the roles of market structure and firm size, controlling for industry, geography, regulatory and macroeconomic variables. Answers are relevant for firms' strategic decisions, taking into account what rivals likely choose, in a world where CSR is often a competition tool. Public authorities also benefit on choosing focus: lack of competition; small or large sized firms; which categories are more affected. We find that all CSR categories profit more from a competitive setup, particularly employees and environment, and from larger firms, mainly environment. Size and market concentration thus contribute in different directions to CSR, contradicting their usually presumed positive association.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address firms’ decisions on corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a function of the economic environment. The paper focuses on corporate giving, a CSR dimension that is especially important in an economic downturn such as the one experienced by many European economies since 2007-2008. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical framework comprising product differentiation and market competition is proposed. The paper investigates whether adverse economic conditions refrain corporate giving or, alternatively, stimulate it as a differentiation and demand enhancing instrument. Econometric empirical testing on the business cycle properties of giving at an aggregate level is also conducted. Findings According to theoretical results, firms seem to refrain giving under adverse economic conditions in the short run. Empirically, the paper concludes for a pro cyclical contemporaneous relation of corporate giving with real gross domestic product, supporting the theoretical finding. In a dynamic perspective, however, giving causes revenues and firms tend to donate more than a few years after the downturn. Originality/value The paper examines the behaviour of an under researched component of corporate social responsibility, which is especially important in economic downturns - giving. It considers continuous degrees of market competition and differentiation.

We analyze the price effects of mergers to monopoly between producers of complementary goods when there exists a fraction of consumers that value only one of the components. We show that customers are more likely to face a price decrease for the composite good under this setting than when such consumers do not exist. Copyright � 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation � 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and The University of Manchester.