Finance Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collection

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

Open Access
Corporate Social Responsibility, Pension Assumptions, and Risky Asset Allocations in Defined Benefit Pension Plans
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Jang, Donghyeok; Wu, Youchang
I explore the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in mitigating agency issues in defined benefit (DB) pension plan management. Strong CSR firms tend to engage less in earnings management associated with executive options granting and CFOs' pay sensitivity to the stock value (Delta) through the assumed long-term rate of returns on pension assets. Furthermore, strong CSR firms are less likely to manipulate the pension discount rate in response to a change in the pension funding gap. I also investigate whether CSR influences firms' decision to make risky investments with pension assets. OLS analysis indicates that a standard deviation increase in the Material CSR score is associated with a 0.063 (1.93) percentage points decrease in assumed returns (equity allocation) in pension plans. Using BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill event as an exogenous shock, I provide supporting evidence for the causal link between firms' CSR performance and the pension policies.