Whether and how doing good (corporate social responsibility, CSR) makes business sense has been a source of constant debate. We suggest that trust underlies the mixed theory and empirical evidence of such debate. Doing good helps sustain a firm’s long-term credit rating by building trust, which alleviates stakeholder relationship uncertainties in incomplete contracts. Doing good is good for credit ratings when it is effective in building trust, when and where the marginal benefit of “earned trust” is high, and where societal trust is high and likely to mitigate moral hazard problems. Our results are robust to endogeneity and robustness tests.
Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, Trust, Crisis, Credit rating, Cost of debt
JEL classification: G12; G13; G14.
