Purpose

This study explores whether a firm's environmental and social (E&S) transparency affects corporate payout policies having two forms of dividend payout and stock repurchase payout.

Design/methodology/approach

Focusing on a large sample of S&P 500 firms, and utilizing Tobit estimators, the author examines whether a firm's environmental transparency and social transparency affect the levels of each dividend payout and stock repurchase payout. Transparency reflects comprehensive scores compiled by Bloomberg, capturing both the quantity (in terms of the number of data points) and the quality (with respect to objective and industry-relevant data points) of verified E&S information attributed to a firm's E&S practices.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that transparency, both environmental and social, relates to higher corporate payouts (i.e. higher dividend payout and higher stock repurchase payout). These positive relationships are magnified for firms suffering from high information asymmetry, low financial reporting quality and for those with weak governance. Moreover, the author finds that dividend payout is more stable in high E&S transparent firms than in low E&S transparent firms. The study findings continue to hold after a battery of robustness and sensitivity checks such as alternative measures, specifications, estimators, use of the instrumental variable regression approach and mitigation of omitted variable bias

Research limitations/implications

The study findings suggest that investors' interests (demanding for high corporate payouts) and other stakeholders' interests (demanding for high E&S transparency) are not necessarily in conflict, and investors' demands can be met while maintaining commitment to high E&S transparency. In addition, the study results imply that higher E&S transparency complements higher corporate payouts and signals to the market both a firm's commitment to E&S transparency and its ability to have high corporate payouts. In this line, the study findings clarify the high value of E&S transparency screening in investors' decision-making process as such transparency leads to higher corporate payouts for investors (i.e. facilitating wealth transfer to shareholders). Finally, the study findings are relevant to standard setters and regulators who emphasize the importance of E&S transparency.

Originality/value

By integrating two distinct streams of literature on corporate finance and corporate social responsibility (CSR), the author introduces E&S transparency as a novel nonfinancial driver of corporate payout policies. Finally, the study findings are in line with the notion that firm transparency (reflected in E&S transparency) can be a crucial element in justifying a firm's corporate payout policies and, in an overall view, firm policies.

中文翻译：

---

企业社会责任透明度对企业支付政策的影响

目的

本研究探讨了公司的环境和社会 (E&S) 透明度是否会影响具有股息支付和股票回购支付两种形式的公司支付政策。

设计/方法/方法

关注标准普尔 500 指数公司的大量样本，并利用 Tobit 估计量，作者检验了公司的环境透明度和社会透明度是否影响每次股息支付和股票回购支付的水平。透明度反映了彭博编制的综合评分，涵盖了归因于公司 E&S 实践的经验证 E&S 信息的数量（就数据点的数量而言）和质量（就客观和行业相关的数据点而言）。

发现

调查结果表明，环境和社会的透明度​​与更高的公司支出（即更高的股息支出和更高的股票回购支出）有关。对于遭受高度信息不对称、低财务报告质量和治理薄弱的公司来说，这些积极的关系会被放大。此外，作者发现高 E&S 透明公司的股息支付比低 E&S 透明公司更稳定。在一系列稳健性和敏感性检查（例如替代措施、规格、估计量、工具变量回归方法的使用和遗漏变量偏差的缓解）之后，研究结果继续成立

研究限制/影响

研究结果表明，投资者的利益（要求高企业支出）和其他利益相关者的利益（要求高 E&S 透明度）不一定冲突，在保持对高 E&S 透明度的承诺的同时，可以满足投资者的需求。此外，研究结果表明，更高的 E&S 透明度补充了更高的公司支出，并向市场发出了公司对 E&S 透明度的承诺及其获得高公司支出的能力的信号。在这方面，研究结果阐明了 E&S 透明度筛选在投资者决策过程中的高价值，因为这种透明度会导致投资者获得更高的公司支出（即促进财富向股东转移）。最后，

原创性/价值

通过整合关于企业财务和企业社会责任 (CSR) 的两种截然不同的文献流，作者将 E&S 透明度作为企业支付政策的一种新的非财务驱动因素进行了介绍。最后，研究结果与公司透明度（反映在 E&S 透明度中）可以成为证明公司公司支付政策以及总体上公司政策合理的关键因素的观点一致。