Corporate social responsibility fulfilment, product-market competition and debt risk: Evidence from China

Based on the financial data for Chinese A-share companies listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) score data published in the Hexun website^‡from 2010 to 2019, we carried out an empirical study and found that CSR fulfilment helps to restrain debt risk faced by firms, and that product-market competition can promote the inhibitory effect of CSR fulfilment on debt risk. The further study found that CSR fulfilment of monetary capital layer and human capital layer on debt risk will be significantly stronger than that of social capital layer.