The Effect of Mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosure on Corporate Financial performance in China: A DID Analysis.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted management, investors, and scholars' attention. As CSR is gradually recognized and valued, many countries’ governments have begun to promulgate policies requiring listed companies to disclose CSR reports in their annual reports compulsorily, such as France, UK, and China. This study aims to analyse the effects of mandatory CSR policy reporting on Financial performance (FP) from three perspectives in China: the accounting-based performance, the market-based performance, and the risk management performance. We employ the Difference-in-Difference (DID) method with the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to analyse the impacts of CSR policy on Financial Performance (FP). The sample period covers 2006 to 2019 and panel data is obtained from China Stock Market Database (CSMAR). We find, that companies experience a decrease in financial performance on all three perspectives due to the mandatory CSR disclosure. The study contributes to the literature by extending the research on mandatory CSR disclosure in China and providing more comprehensive perspectives for FP analysis.