Attig, El Ghoul, Guedhami, and Suh (2013)

Attig, Najah, Sadok El Ghoul, Omrane Guedhami, Jungwon Suh.  “Corporate Social Responsibility and Credit Ratings.”  Journal of Business Ethics, April 5, 2013.

From authors' abstract:  "This study provides evidence on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firms’ credit ratings. We find that credit rating agencies tend to award relatively high ratings to firms with good social performance. This pattern is robust to controlling for key firm characteristics as well as endogeneity between CSR and credit ratings."

Link:  https://econpapers.repec.org/article/kapjbuset/v_3a117_3ay_3a2013_3ai_3a4_3ap_3a679-694.htm