Research On The Peer Effect Of Corporate Charitable Donations Under The Background Of The Third Distribution

Corporate charitable donation refers to an enterprise donating a certain amount of funds,goods or services to individuals or organizations in difficulty in order to fulfill its social responsibilities.Charitable donations by enterprises are not only a moral imperative of citizens,but also play an important role in solving many social problems such as disaster relief,poverty relief,education assistance,and poverty alleviation.At present,China’s public welfare undertakings have entered a new stage of development and have become a force to be reckoned with in the process of China’s social progress and rapid economic development.Documents such as the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the 14 th Five-Year Plan and the Long-term Goals for 2035 have repeatedly stressed the need to further improve the third distribution,give play to the powerful function of philanthropy,and improve the pattern of wealth distribution in China.Therefore,in this context,in order to improve the third distribution and achieve the goal of common prosperity,it has become a top priority to adhere to enterprise-based charitable donations.In the context of the third distribution,it is of great practical significance to conduct an in-depth discussion on the motivation of corporate charitable donations.Based on this,this paper takes the A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to2020 as the research object,and systematically investigates the existence and formation mechanism of corporate charitable donation peer effect.The results show that in the same industry and the same region,the charitable donation behavior of the same group of enterprises shows a significant positive effect in the decision-making of corporate charitable donation,that is,there is a peer effect.The formation mechanism of corporate charitable donation peer effect includes two aspects: one is social learning,and the other is social competition,and after a series of robustness tests,the conclusion is still valid.Further research found that SOEs showed a more significant peer effect than private enterprises in charitable donations.Compared with indirect donations,the peer effect of direct donations is more significant;In addition,a group study of different industries and regions found that the peer effect of corporate charitable donations in the manufacturing and eastern regions was more significant.This study not only theoretically enriches the motivation of corporate charitable donation,but also provides guidance and reference for how enterprises can better fulfill their social responsibilities and improve the third distribution.The main innovations of this paper are: First,it enriches the research on corporate charitable donations from the perspective of peer effect.Studies have treated companies as separate individuals to make charitable giving decisions,ignoring the interaction between comparable firms.Second,it expands the research on the formation mechanism of corporate charitable donation peer effect.Most of the existing literature studies on peer effect are based on its existence,and there is a lack of discussion on the path of peer effect mechanism.Third,it emphasizes the intersection of disciplines and is unified with modern empirical measurement methods.Most of the existing studies start from a single discipline and use normative research methods to study corporate charitable donations,and lack relevant arguments at the empirical level.