Regulators are increasingly seeking ways to incentivize firms to improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) while minimizing criticism of direct interventions in firm behavior. This study takes advantage of two exogenous regulatory shocks initiated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the US. In 2011, the CFPB enabled the private filing of consumer complaints against financial firms, and in 2013, these complaints were publicly disclosed. Our findings reveal a positive association between consumer complaints and subsequent CSR performance of the targeted financial firms (referred to as focal firms). Notably, this association becomes significant only after the public disclosure of complaints. Furthermore, we observe a spillover effect on the CSR performance of non-focal firms operating in the same area as the focal firms. Collectively, these findings suggest that mandatory disclosure of consumer complaints is one effective regulatory strategy to motivate both focal and non-focal firms to enhance their CSR performance.

监管机构越来越多地寻求方法来激励企业改善企业社会责任（CSR），同时尽量减少对企业行为直接干预的批评。本研究利用了美国消费者金融保护局 (CFPB) 发起的两次外生监管冲击。2011年，CFPB允许消费者私下对金融公司提出投诉，并于2013年公开披露这些投诉。我们的研究结果表明，消费者投诉与目标金融公司（称为焦点公司）随后的企业社会责任绩效之间存在正相关关系。值得注意的是，只有在公开披露投诉后，这种关联才变得有意义。此外，我们观察到与焦点企业在同一地区运营的非焦点企业的企业社会责任绩效存在溢出效应。总的来说，这些发现表明，强制披露消费者投诉是一种有效的监管策略，可以激励重点企业和非重点企业提高企业社会责任绩效。