In this paper I investigate the investment behavior of SRI investors based on SRI mutual fund flows. Specifically, I analyze how SRI investors react to past performance and ethical standards. This empirical study shows that over the years along with the development of the SRI fund market, the...

We test the frequently made claim that SRI funds are conventional funds in disguise. For this purpose, we compare the portfolio holdings of SRI funds to conventional funds concerning their social and environmental standards. Our empirical study of US equity funds shows that SRI funds have a...

This paper examines the compliance of a large sample of faith-based ethical funds – Shari'ah equity funds (SEFs). SEFs screen their investment for compliance with Islamic law, where riba (conventional interest expense), maysir (gambling), gharar (excessive uncertainty), and non-halal...

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the smart money effect in mutual funds - whereby investors are able to identify funds that subsequently perform well - in Malaysian Islamic and conventional domestic equity funds. We find that Islamic equity fund investors are unable to identify...

Compared to conventional mutual funds, socially responsible mutual funds outperform during periods of market crisis. This dampening of downside risk comes at the cost of under performing during non-crisis periods. Investors with Prospect Theory utility functions would value the skewness of these...

One of the significant developments in the investing community is the rise of socially responsible or ethical investments during last two decades. Because of the increasing size and importance of ethical mutual funds, this paper seeks to evaluate and compare the performance of ethical mutual...

The quality and diversity of a fund’s investment team has long been viewed as a critical part of its success and a potential driver of performance. Yet because active fund management still lacks gender diversity, there are likely additional benefits to be realized.This study leverages a novel...

Mutual funds must publish policies announcing how they generally vote on the different ballot items at the shareholder meetings of their portfolio firms. I manually collect 17,000 of these policies for a sample of 29 of the largest U.S. mutual fund families over 2006-2018. I find that voting...

One of the significant developments in the investing community is the rise of socially responsible or ethical investments during last two decades. Because of the increasing size and importance of ethical mutual funds, this paper seeks to evaluate and compare the performance of ethical mutual...

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...