The effect of corporate social responsibility disclosures on share prices in Japan and the UK

This paper investigates whether corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) is associated with firms’ market values in order to assess whether CSRD provides incremental value relevant information to investors. A modified Ohlson (1995) model is used, which is a widely accepted equity valuation model in accounting research. The findings suggest that investors in the UK consider CSRD information in the total information set they use for their investment decision-making, whereas Japanese investors do not appear to find that CSRD provides incremental information over and above financial information to assist in their valuations of firms. These findings have implications for investors and regulators, specifically around the control and governance of firms.