德勤－复旦会计论坛系列232期讲座信息

时    间：2024年 6月25日下午1:30

地    点：史带楼502

题    目：For-benefit or For-profit? The Dark Side of Stakeholderism Legislation

报告人：Frank Zhang (Yale University)

主持人：张新 教授

摘    要:

The Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) legislation redefines corporate purposes by introducing a new legal form of corporate structure, the for-benefit corporation, which must include public benefits in its certificate of incorporation. This legislation creates an uneven comparison between traditional for-profit corporations and for-benefit corporations. We posit that PBC legislation increases the uncertainty of directors’ fiduciary duties and diminishes perceived commitment to public interests for traditional for-profit corporations. Consequently, for-profit companies will reduce their corporate social responsibility activities following the adoption of PBC laws, a phenomenon we term the corrosion effect. By exploiting the staggered enactment of PBC legislations across 43 U.S. states, we find results consistent with our predictions. The corrosion effect is more pronounced for firms in states with preexisting voluntary stakeholder orientation statutes and for firms with higher litigation risk, and less pronounced for firms with more socially conscious investors and for firms in consumerfacing industries. Additionally, we find that socially conscious investors reduce their ownership in traditional for-profit corporations after the enactment of PBC legislation. Overall, we provide novel evidence that the stakeholderism legislation has unintended corrosion effects on traditional for-profit corporations. 

会计学系

2024-6-19