Corporate Social Responsibility Policies of Commercial Banks in Developing Countries

We investigate the corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies of commercial banks indeveloping countries. Our analysis is based on a sample of 402 banks from 44 countries.We also analyze how bank and country characteristics connect with banks’ CSR policies.We find that there is a significant difference regarding the CSR scores among individualbanks and countries. There is not much difference along various per capita income classes.We establish a positive a nd significant association between CSR policies and bank characteristicssuch as total assets and return on assets, as well as with country specific characteristics suchas financial development and the ability of citizens to freely express their opinions. The opennessof a country is negatively associated with banks’ CSR policies