Global corporate social responsibility reporting regulation

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has steadily grown in importance. We show government regulation on corporate reporting of CSR, aimed to spur its growth and increase transparency, has grown in tandem. Such reporting regulation is more readily observable than CSR itself and can be used as a proxy for the latter. We show that larger economies with higher institutional capacity find it easier to develop reporting regulations, and that international influences and local pollution increase concerns are important contributing factors. We show that such regulation also increases CSR, even after accounting for common unobserved factors that may affect both.