The Impact Of Corporate Social Responsibility Performance On Debt Financing Cost

As an important channel for enterprises to obtain external funds,how to reduce the cost of debt financing is of great significance to the improvement of enterprises’ competitiveness,operational capacity and even their sustainable development.The cost of financing depends on creditors’ assessment of corporate information when making credit decisions.Creditors will not only evaluate and judge based on corporate financial indicators,but also pay more and more attention to non-financial information such as corporate social responsibility performance.Therefore,how social responsibility performance affects investors’ decisions and whether firms can achieve lower debt financing costs by improving social responsibility performance are the main questions explored in this paper.In addition,considering that operational risk is the key information for creditors to assess the risk of debt default and the ability of corporate debt performance,it is necessary to examine the impact of CSR performance on debt financing cost from the perspective of operational risk.Based on the above background,this paper selects A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2020 as the research sample by reading relevant literature and combining the theoretical basis,and firstly analyzes and tests the impact of CSR performance on debt financing cost.Secondly,examines the mechanism of CSR performance on debt financing cost from the perspective of operational risk,and examines the impact of analyst attention and audit quality in external supervision on the relationship between the two.Finally,this paper explores the differences in the impact of CSR performance on debt financing cost under the heterogeneity of CSR dimensions and heterogeneous property rights in further analysis.The empirical test results show:(1)CSR performance is conducive to reducing the cost of debt financing;(2)there is a mediating effect of operational risk in the relationship between CSR performance and the cost of debt financing;(3)the reduction effect of CSR performance on the cost of debt financing is more significant in enterprises with weaker external supervision.Further study finds that the negative effect of CSR performance on debt financing cost is more significant in technology-based CSR performance(TCSR)compared to public-based CSR performance(ICSR);the negative effect of CSR performance on debt financing cost is more significant in private enterprises compared to state-owned enterprises.The findings of this paper provide relevant suggestions for enterprises to strengthen social responsibility awareness and system construction,and for regulators to improve social responsibility-related institutional construction and deepen policy guidance.