Corporate social responsibility disclosure and banks' performance: the role of economic performance and institutional quality

Purpose - This study aims to examine the moderating role of a country's economic activities and institutional quality (IQ) on the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and banks' operational, financial and market performance. Design/methodology/approach - This study examines 245 banks from emerging markets for 13 years (2008-2020), yielding unbalanced panel of 1899 bank-year observations. The independent variable is CSRD. The dependent variables are return on asset (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and Tobin Q. The authors used ordinary least square (OLS), panel fixed-effect and instrumental variables-generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) to estimate the parameters of the models. Findings - The authors find that the CSRD scores negatively influence banks' performance. The moderator of CSRD and the level of economic activities have a positive relationship with banks' performance. However, the moderator (CSRD and IQ), while showing positive relationship with banks' performance, has a significant effect only on banks' operational and financial performance. Originality/value - This study provides new evidence on the ways in which economic performance and IQ (IQ) influence the CSRD practices of banks in emerging markets.