In recent years, the socially responsible investing (SRI) industry has become an important segment of international capital markets by incorporating ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors into investment selection and management processes. This study analyses whether SRI mutual funds...

Private equity is a crucial source of financing for start-ups and, therefore, important for innovation and economic growth. The securities laws have an enormous impact on the ability of start-ups to obtain private equity investment. One of the most important of these laws is the SEC's Rule 144....

This paper addresses the implementation of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) in the investment process. We argue that a clear distinction needs to be made between (1) ethical based, (2) investment driven and value-ensuring objectives in SRI. This distinction enables trustees and investors to...

More and more investors apply socially responsible screens when building their stock portfolios. This raises the question whether these investors can increase their performance by incorporating such screens into their investment process. To answer this question we implement a simple trading...

Socially responsible investors are similar to conventional investors in some ways but different in others. Like conventional investors, socially responsible investors want high returns and low risk, but socially responsible investors also want their portfolios to conform to their values, whether...

What do we know about socially responsible investments? What distinguishes socially responsible companies from conventional companies? Should investors expect socially responsible investments to yield higher or lower returns than conventional investments? What has been the performance of...

This paper provides a comparative analysis of pension plan allocations to private equity and to venture capital in the United States and in Canada. Although the assets of American funds in our data are worth 10 times those of Canadian funds, their investment in private equity is about 20 times...

This paper investigates how mutual fund managers use 12b-1 fees to motivate selling brokers. Cross-sectional evidences show that the changes in brokerage payment out of 12b-1 fees are positively related to funds previous performance. Given good performance, increasing selling brokerage payment...

The term structure of interest rates gives the relationship between the yield on an investment and the term to maturity of the investment. Since the term structure is typically measured using default-free, continuously-compounded, annualized zero-coupon yields, it is not directly observable from...

This article assesses the effectiveness of a long collar as a protective strategy. We examine the risk/return characteristics of a passive collar strategy on the Powershares QQQ trust exchange traded fund (Ticker: QQQQ) from March 1999 to March 2008 and find that, over this time period, a...