Corporate social responsibility and earnings management in U.S. banks

Highlights• Reverse causality between EM and CSR is explored in the U.S. banking sector.• Banks actively engaged in EM practices are found to be deeply involved in CSR.• CSR seen as part of legitimation strategies aimed at deflecting attention from EM.• Bank's engagement in CSR activities is found to have no significant impact on EM.• Extreme caution should be exhibited when factoring CSR commitment in firm analyses.