Authors
Ling Cen, Yanru Han, Chang Liu, Jing Wu
Publication date
2022
Book
The Rise of Conscious Consumers: The Cash Flow Implications of Corporate Workplace Equality: Cen, Ling| uHan, Yanru| uLiu, Chang| uWu, Jing
Publisher
[Sl]: SSRN
Description
We construct a corporate workplace equality measure based on textual analysis of equal employment opportunity statements in online job postings of US public companies. We verify this measure by demonstrating its predictive power for future employment discrimination lawsuits and identifying the cost that deters low-equality firms from mimicking high-equality peers. Based on this measure, we show that US households spend more on products produced by firms with higher corporate workplace equality, and this pattern is stronger among consumers of racial or gender minorities. We establish the causality by taking advantage of quasi-exogenous social events, including the \#MeToo movement in 2017, the passage of the California Gender Board Diversity Law in 2018, and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Overall, our study provides direct cash flow implications of corporate workplace equality through the purchase decisions of conscious consumers and establishes a micro-foundation of consumer behaviors for the asset pricing of ESG/CSR factors
Total citations
2022202331
Scholar articles
L Cen, Y Han, C Liu, J Wu - The Rise of Conscious Consumers: The Cash Flow …, 2022