Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance in Emerging Banking Systems: Evidence from Moroccan Banks

This study examines the association between documented corporate social responsibility (CSR) recognition and accounting performance in eleven Moroccan banks during 2014–2023. Reconciliation of the original 110 bank-year records identified measurement inconsistencies and led to an unbalanced estimation sample of 108 observations, or 103 for the risk burden ratio. Profitability is measured separately by net income-based returns on assets and equity and the net banking margin. Pooled and fixed effects regressions are complemented by bank and year fixed effects, bank-clustered inference, and an exhaustive restricted wild cluster bootstrap. None of the CSR coefficients in the bank and year fixed effects models is statistically significant at the 5% level. Confidence intervals remain wide, however, and only five banks change recorded recognition status. The findings provide limited associational evidence about formal recognition, rather than a causal assessment of substantive CSR practices. Remaining accounting perimeter differences and incomplete recognition records constrain interpretation and generalization.