Corporate social responsibility and trade credit: International evidence

We examine the relation between CSR engagement and trade credit use, taking into consideration the role of national cultures in a global context between the years 2004 and 2019. Our study provides evidence that socially responsible firms can have better access to trade credit from their suppliers. This result is robust to employing individual components of CSR, alternative measures of CSR and trade credit, different model specifications and controlling for potential endogeneity. The channel analysis finds that CSR is linked with trade credit use through information asymmetry. Furthermore, the positive association between CSR and trade credit is more pronounced in countries with high power distance, low uncertainty avoidance, and low masculinity.