How Do Multinationals Report Their Economic, Social, and Environmental Impacts? : Evidence from Global Reporting Initiative Data

Winkler, Deborah

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS;    SDGs;    SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS;    SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING;    CORPORATE REPORTING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8274
RP-ID  :  WPS8274

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the role ofmultinational enterprises in sustainability reporting. Thestudy assesses how multinational enterprise statuscorrelates with a company's average disclosure rate andprobability of reporting on economic, labor and social,environmental, and governance indicators. It uses a uniquedata set that offers company-level information onsustainability reporting from the Global ReportingInitiative, which covers 2,020 companies in 81 countries and54 sustainability indicators. The summary statistics showthat multinational enterprises and large domestic companieshave higher average disclosure rates than small andmedium-size enterprises. However, the econometric analysissuggests that multinational enterprise status does notmatter for the average disclosure rate, but company sizeshows a strongly positive correlation. Differentiating bytype of multinational enterprise reveals that therelationship becomes positive and significant for privatecompanies. By contrast, the correlation betweenmultinational enterprise status and the average disclosurerate does not vary by listing status, sector, region, orincome level. Focusing on the relationship by developmentcategory also shows no significant correlation. Finally,accounting for the heterogeneity of the sustainabilityindicators, the study analyzes the relationship betweenmultinational enterprise status and the probability ofdisclosure at the detailed indicator level, and confirms asignificant correlation for 12 indicators.