This paper surveys the literature on socially responsible investments (SRI). Over the past decade, SRI has experienced an explosive growth around the world. Particular to the SRI funds is that both financial goals and social objectives are pursued. While corporate social responsibility (CSR) -...

We investigate the fundamental determinants and value implications of corporate social responsibility (CSR) around the world. We contrast three broad views on CSR: (1) it is a response to government failure; (2) it reflects individual and societal preferences; (3) it is an equilibrium result of a...

Abstract: We investigate the roles of legal origins and political institutions – believed to be the fundamental determinants of economic outcomes – in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We argue that CSR is an essential path to economic sustainability, and document strong correlations...

The social and ecological challenges that governments face have raised their interest in socially responsible business conduct (SRBC). In this article we analyze the motives of executives to perform SRBC. We distinguish three types of motives: financial, ethical and altruistic motives. We test...

In the corporate finance tradition starting with Berle & Means (1923), corporations should generally be run so as to maximize shareholder value. The agency view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) generally considers CSR as a managerial agency problem and a waste of corporate resources,...

This paper studies how the difference between technical depreciation and tax depreciation affects the firm's optimal investment strategy. The objective is maximization of shareholder value. When tax depreciation differs from technical depreciation, an additional investment not only generates...

We study social preferences in a three-person ultimatum game experiment with one proposer and two responders.Any responder can unilaterally punish the proposer.In three treatments, we vary the pecuniary consequences of rejection in such a way that upon rejection of one responder the other...

Many experimental studies indicate that people are motivated by reciprocity. Rabin (1993) develops techniques for incorporating such concerns into game theory and economics. His model, however, does not fare well when applied to situations with an interesting dynamic structure (like many...

Abstract: We compare default rates on conventional and Islamic loans using a comprehensive monthly dataset from Pakistan that follows more than 150,000 loans over the period 2006:04 to 2008:12. We find robust evidence that the default rate on Islamic loans is less than half the default rate on...

This paper estimates the price of ethics by studying the risk-return relation in socially responsible investment (SRI) funds. Consistent with investors paying a price for ethics, SRI funds in many European and Asia-Pacific countries strongly underperform domestic benchmark portfolios by about 5%...