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Environmental Protection and the Social Responsibility of Firms
Perspectives from Law,
Economics, and Business
Bruce L. Hay, Robert N. Stavins, and Richard H. K. Vietor, editors |
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"In a richly rewarding book comprising contributions to a 2003 workshop at Harvard University on Law, Economics and Business Approaches to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), lead authors Einer R. Elhauge (Harvard Law School), Paul Portney (Resources for the Future), and Forest L. Reinhardt (Harvard Business School) escort us through a complex array of doctrines, models, and frameworks to explore the intersection of CSR with law, economics and management. Six commentators supplement the principal papers, challenging and augmenting the arguments of Elhauge, Portney and Reinhart. The debates are lively and unusually engaging for a volume based on workshop proceedings. And beyond the substance, this volume could not be timelier. After a decade of the slow but steady ascent of the CSR movement, now is a moment to pause and ask how deep and enduring is this phenomenon amid the dynamic business environment of the twenty-first century?"
--Journal of Industrial Economics, July 2006 |
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Table of Contents and Overview
("The Four Questions of Corporate Social Responsibility: May They, Can They, Should They, Do They?") |
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Cloth: $94.00
ISBN 1-933115-02-5
Paper: $44.95
ISBN 1-933115-03-3
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Everyone agrees that firms should obey the law. But beyond what the law requires—beyond bare compliance with regulations—do firms have additional social responsibilities to commit resources voluntarily to environmental protection? How should we think about firms sacrificing profits in the social interest? Are they permitted to do so, given their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders? Even if permissible, is the practice sustainable, or will the competitive marketplace render such efforts and their impacts transient at best? Furthermore, is the practice, however well intended, an efficient use of social and economic resources? And, as an empirical matter, to what extent do firms already behave this way? |
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Until now, public discussion has generated more heat than light on both the normative and positive questions surrounding corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the environmental realm. In Environmental Protection and the Social Responsibility of Firms, some of the nation’s leading scholars in law, economics, and business examine commonly accepted assumptions at the heart of current debates on corporate social responsibility and provide a foundation for future research and policymaking. |
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Author Bios |
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Bruce L. Hay is a professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Richard H. K. Vietor is the Senator John Heinz Professor of Envrionmental Management at the Harvard Business School.
Distinguished contributors to this book include Einer Elhauge and Mark Roe of Harvard Law School; John Donohue and Daniel Esty of Yale Law School; Paul Portney of Resources for the Future; Dennis Aigner of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Forest Reinhardt of Harvard Business School; Eric Orts of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; and David Vogel of the University of California, Berkeley. |
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