In this study, we conduct a textual analysis of the third-party disclosure of corporate sustainability news focused on the Standard and Poor's 500 firms in the United States market during the first and second quarter of 2020. We find a positive relationship between corporate sustainability news release and firm-specific stock price crash risk. This finding is surprising, but it indeed aligns with agency theory. It indicates that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated the tendency of managers under increasing financial pressure to use the sustainability information release as a mechanism to mask and withhold bad news for extended periods at the expense of shareholders. This tendency results in high stock price crash risk. Our results are robust to alternative empirical specifications, estimation methods, and tests for endogeneity. Moreover, additional evidence reveals that agency theory dominates legitimacy theory in explaining the effect of sustainability on this risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

中文翻译：

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在 COVID-19 大流行期间，如何解释可持续发展参与对股价崩盘风险的影响——代理理论还是合法性理论？

在本研究中，我们对 2020 年第一季度和第二季度美国市场标准普尔 500 强企业的企业可持续发展新闻第三方披露情况进行了文本分析。我们发现企业可持续发展新闻之间存在正相关关系。释放和公司特定的股价崩盘风险。这一发现令人惊讶，但它确实符合代理理论。这表明，冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行加剧了管理者在日益增加的财务压力下利用可持续发展信息发布作为长期掩盖和隐瞒坏消息的机制，从而损害了股东的利益。这种趋势导致股价崩盘风险较高。我们的结果对于替代经验规范、估计方法和内生性检验是稳健的。此外，更多证据表明，在解释 COVID-19 大流行期间可持续性对这一风险的影响时，代理理论主导了合法性理论。