本文基于手工搜集的、2008-2010年期间污染行业的A股上市公司环境责任与佛教的相关数据，实证分析了中国佛教是否、以及如何影响公司的环境绩效。研究发现，佛教与公司环境绩效显著正相关，但法律环境调和了佛教与公司环境绩效之间的正相关关系。这一研究，为宗教与社会责任行为、特别是环境责任提供了重要的经验证据支持。Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in polluting industries for the period of 2008–2010, we empirically investigate whether and how Buddhism, China’s most influential religion, affects corporate environmental responsibility (CER). In this study, we measure Buddhist variables as the number of Buddhist monasteries within a certain radius around Chinese listed firms’ registered addresses. In addition, we hand-collect corporate environmental disclosure scores based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines. Using hand-collected Buddhism data and corporate environmental disclosure scores, we provide strong and robust evidence that Buddhism is significantly positively associated with CER. This finding is consistent with the following view: Buddhism can serve as social norms to evoke the consciousness of social responsibility, and thereof strengthen CER. Our findings also reveal that the positive association between Buddhism and CER is attenuated for firms with higher law enforcement index. The results are robust to various measures of Buddhism and a variety of sensitivity tests.http://news.xmu.edu.cn/s/13/t/542/20/94/info139412.ht

本文基于手工搜集的中国A股上市公司2004-2010年期间慈善捐赠与宗教的相关数据，实证分析了宗教 (佛教与道教) 是否、以及如何影响公司的慈善捐赠决策。研究发现，宗教与公司慈善捐赠显著正相关、但这一正向关系对于国有企业而言显著更弱。这一研究，为宗教与慈善行为提供了重要的经验证据支持和很好的脚注。Using a sample of Chinese listed firms for the period of 2004–2010, this study examines the impact of religion on corporate philanthropic giving. Based on hand-collected data of religion and corporate philanthropic giving, we provide strong and robust evidence that religion is significantly positively associated with Chinese listed firms’ philanthropic giving. This finding is consistent with the view that religiosity has remarkable effects on individual thinking and behavior, and can serve as social norms to influence corporate philanthropy. Moreover, religion and corporate philanthropic giving have a significantly weaker (less pronounced) positive association for state-owned enterprises than for non-state-owned enterprises. The results are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests. Our results highlight religious influence on corporate philanthropic giving in contemporary China, an old traditional country with a typical communist economy.http://news.xmu.edu.cn/s/13/t/542/20/94/info139412.ht

Using a sample of 11,357 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market for the period of 2001-2011, we investigate whether and how religion can mitigate earnings management. Specifically, based on geographic-proximity-based religion variables, we provide strong and robust evidence to show that religion is significantly negatively associated with the extent of earnings management, suggesting that religion can serve as a set of social norms to mitigate corporate unethical behavior such as earnings management. Our findings also reveal that the negative association between religion and earnings management is less pronounced for firms with closer distance to the regulatory centers than for their counterparts, implying the substitutive effects between religion and the distance to regulators (the proxy for regulatory intensity) on mitigating earnings management. The above results are robust to different measures of earnings management, various religion variables, and a variety of sensitivity tests.

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