Media, reputational risk, and bank loan contracting*

We investigate how reputational risk arising from traditional and online media coverage of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI) conducts affects the cost of borrowing and what are the factors that can mitigate or amplify this effect. First, we find that negative media attention increases bank loan costs and show that this result is robust to endogeneity concerns and alternative measures of key variables. Next, we find that the impact of negative media attention on bank loan costs is more severe if the misconduct involves borrowers with prior high Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reputations, while it is smaller when prior lending relationships exist between the lead arranger and the borrower.