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This paper aims to explore the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on shareholder value using the stock market reactions to a terrorist attack. This paper exploits the September 11 terrorist attack as an unanticipated exogenous shock that reduced shareholder wealth suddenly and unexpectedly. Based on the risk-mitigation hypothesis, the argument is that more socially responsible firms should suffer less negative market reactions.

This paper uses the standard event study methodology to estimate the stock market reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attack. Then, the study executes a cross-section analysis to determine whether CSR offers any protection in the presence of a sudden negative shock. Additional analysis includes propensity score matching, instrumental-variable analysis and using Oster’s (2019) method for testing coefficient stability.

The results show that the negative stock market reactions to the shock are significantly alleviated for firms with strong social responsibility. A rise in CSR by one standard deviation improves the market reactions by 22.56% of the average decline. This is consistent with the prediction of the risk mitigation hypothesis, where CSR spawns moral capital or goodwill that functions as an insurance-like defense in case of an adverse event.

The study focuses on short-term market reactions because this method is more likely to show a causal effect. Future research may investigate long-term effects.

While prior research has investigated the effect of CSR on firm value, it has been challenging to establish causality. The approach is more likely to show causality as it is based on a sudden and unanticipated negative shock. This paper also uses several methods to reduce endogeneity, making it more likely that the results show causality, rather than merely an association.

This paper aims to explore the effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on board gender diversity. Prior research shows that female directors play a beneficial role. The advantage of board gender diversity should be particularly helpful when firms have to navigate an uncertain environment. So the authors hypothesize that firms adjust their board gender diversity in response to EPU.

The authors execute a regression analysis. To minimize endogeneity, the authors execute firm-fixed effects regressions, an instrumental variable (IV) analysis and propensity score matching.

Consistent with their hypothesis, the authors find that firms significantly raise board gender diversity in response to EPU. To draw a causal inference, the authors exploit the 9/11 terrorist attack as an exogenous shock that elevated EPU unexpectedly. The authors’ IV analysis corroborates the results. Finally, the authors show that board gender diversity substantially mitigates the adverse effect on shareholder wealth brought about by an unanticipated negative shock attributed to the 9/11 attack.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the effect of EPU on board gender diversity. This research contributes to two important areas of the literature, i.e. board gender diversity and EPU. The authors show that board gender diversity is beneficial and firms act accordingly when facing more economic uncertainty.

Some firms choose not to use an investment bank advisor in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions. We test whether this decision affects the merger announcement period returns. We compare the abnormal returns from a sample of 179 in-house acquisitions (in which either the acquirer or the target firm does not hire an investment bank advisor) to those of a matched sample of acquisitions (in which all firms hire an investment bank advisor). We find that not employing a financial advisor has no significant effect on the abnormal returns of acquiring firms but does reduce the abnormal returns of target firms. This relation holds even after controlling for various firm and merger characteristics.

Shanghai ANE Logistics Co., Ltd., established on June 1, 2010, is a business of road part-load logistics for goods from 5 to 300 kilograms. Mr. Wang Yongjun and his management team have spent five consecutive years building ANE into the biggest part-load franchising network in China, and set up a brand new business model, through integration of traditional transport lines, part-load express network and information technology platform.