Corporate Social Responsibility in India: Motivations and Effectiveness

Developing countries are struggling to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals due to limited resources. Corporations, with their large technological, financial, and managerial resources, have the means to contribute to the social development agenda of a country. India conducted a unique experiment by making it mandatory for large firms to spend 2 per cent of their net profits on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by enacting the CSR Act in 2013. It has been over 10 years since the implementation of the Act in 2014. Over INR 800 billion has been spent on various development projects under CSR initiatives. Understanding what motivated firms to undertake CSR expenditures, how these funds are allocated among different activities, who benefits from the implementation of CSR projects, and their impact on various development indicators would give insights to policymakers to utilise these funds more efficiently. Using district-level CSR expenditure data from 2014 to 2021 across India, this presentation provides a comprehensive and rigorous analysis of CSR expenditures in India, determinants of location of CSR projects, geographic inequities in CSR expenditure, and the contribution of CSR funds to health outcomes.

Your presenter

Sangeeta Bansal is a professor in economics at the Centre for the Study of the World Economy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Her research interests span a wide range of fields at the intersection of environment economics, energy economics, economic development, health and nutrition.  Employing economic theory, empirical analysis and experimental methods, she has authored over 75 peer-reviewed publications that are widely cited in the academic literature. Her work appears in prestigious journals including Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Energy Economics, Agricultural Economics, Environment and Resource Economics, Environment and Development Economics, PLOS One, and Annual Review of Resource Economics.