Religion, the Nature of Ultimate Owner, and Corporate Philanthropic Giving: Evidence from China

Abstract

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

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“…(3) We calculate the distance between a firm and a religious site as the length of the minor arc across the earth's surface according to their longitudes and latitudes (Rising 2000;Du 2013a, b). (4) Following Du et al (2013a), we use 200, 250, and 300 km as the distance criteria (the upper limits) to identify the number of religious sites and define REL200, REL250, and REL300, respectively. Please note that we also use other scales (e.g., 50, 100, 150 km) to reconstruct other religion variables (e.g., REL50, REL100, and REL150) for robustness checks.…”

“…To sum up, Du (2013a, b) establishes the link between religion and corporate governance, especially owner-manager agency conflicts and agency costs between the controlling shareholder and minority shareholders. Du et al (2013a) find that religion has positive impact on corporate philanthropic giving and Du et al (2013b) find that religion is associated with corporate environmental responsibility. follow Du (2013a, b) and utilize quasi-firm-level religion variables, but also develop Du (2013a)'s approach to adopt firm-level religion variables in the strict sense to provide robust results.…”

“…To counter this problem, we follow previous studies and attempt to construct a simple and objective measure. Du (2013a, b) and Du et al (2013a) document strong evidence that religious sites may reflect religious atmosphere in a region. Religious adherents express their devotion and loyalty by building up those monasteries, temples, shrines, and pagodas.…”

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