Difference-in-differences analysis demonstrates higher corporate social responsibility in firms led by routine donor CEOs, indicating executive values directly drive corporate behavior.
Using hand-collected data on CEOs' charitable donations, we show that firms led by CEOs who consistently donate exhibit significantly higher CSR performance than those led by occasional donors or non-donors. To identify causality, we examine exogenous CEO turnover events using a difference-in-differences approach and find that CSR performance increases when a non-routine-donor or non-donor CEO is replaced by a routine donor CEO and vice versa. These findings support behavioral consistency theory, indicating that CEOs' personal socially responsible behavior is indicative of their firms' CSR actions. Overall, we provide new evidence on why firms engage in CSR and identify a previously overlooked CEO attribute that helps explain CSR variation across firms.
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Guo et al. (2026) studied this question.
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