Political Connections and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

—This paper studies the impact of political connection on corporate social responsibility performance within the context of listed firms in emerging markets like China. We find that Politically connected companies will participate in more CSR activities. We also find that Politically connected companies participating in CSR activities receive more debt financing. Our empirical evidence further confirms that this impact is more obvious in private enterprises. The results show that: 1) political connection has a positive impact on corporate social responsibility; 2) political connection has a positive impact on debt financing returns obtained by enterprises participating in CSR activities; 3) private enterprises’ political connection has a greater positive influence on corporate social responsibility than state-owned enterprise, which indicates politically connected companies engage in more CSR activities for rewards. Our research enriches the literature on the impact of political affiliation on CSR.