The Impact of COVID-19 on the Stock Price of Socially Responsible Enterprises: An Empirical Study in Taiwan Stock Market

Abstract

This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the Taiwan stock market and investigates whether companies with a commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) were less affected. This study uses a selection of companies provided by CommonWealth magazine to classify the listed companies in Taiwan as CSR and non-CSR companies. The event study approach is applied to examine the change in the stock prices of CSR companies after the first COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan. The empirical results indicate that the stock prices of all companies generated significantly negative abnormal returns and negative cumulative abnormal returns after the outbreak. Compared with all companies and with non-CSR companies, CSR companies were less affected by the outbreak; their stock prices were relatively resistant to the fall and they recovered faster. In addition, the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 on the stock prices of CSR companies is smaller than that of non-CSR companies on both short- and long-term bases. However, the stock price performance of non-CSR companies was not weaker than that of CSR companies during times when the impact of the pandemic was lower or during the price recovery phase.