Social bonds, debt instruments designated to fund projects with positive social outcomes, have rapidly emerged as a key segment of sustainable finance. This study provides an examination of social bonds in international capital markets, contributing to the literature that has largely focused on environmental (“green”) bonds. We assemble an international sample of social bond issuances and analyse their issuer composition, following with an empirical study from an equity- and bond-market perspectives, and sustainability performance. Consistent with theoretical expectations of stakeholder value, we find that announcements of social bond issuance yield significantly positive abnormal stock returns, with particularly strong reactions for first-time and bank-led issues, and an adverse response for issuers operating in environmentally sensitive industries. Using an entropy-balanced difference-in-differences design, we show that social bond issuers experience improvements in social and community performance, while our matched-sample and cross-sectional pricing analyses find no significant yield differential (or “social premium”) for social bonds relative to conventional bonds, in line with prior evidence from the green bond primary market showing no economic pricing benefit for green bonds (Aswani & Rajgopal, 2025; Flammer, 2021; Tang & Zhang, 2020). Overall, our findings suggest that while investors reward firms signalling social commitment via bond financing through equity market responses and modest improvements in social performance, social bond issuance does not lower issuers’ cost of debt. We discuss implications for issuers, investors, and regulators, including whether social bonds advance social objectives or risk becoming a marketing tool.