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...

We investigate the performance of Socially Responsible Funds (SRFs) and Conventional Funds (CFs) in different market segments during the 1992-2012 period. From an unbalanced sample of more that 22,000 funds, we define a matched sample using a beta-distance measure to match any SRF with the...

In this paper, we investigate investment flows into mutual funds that hold more high corporate social responsible stocks (top CSR funds) vs. mutual funds that hold more low corporate social responsible stocks (bottom CSR funds). Using a large sample of equity mutual funds spanning 2003–2012,...

This essay argues that during and after the financial crisis of 2008/2009, fundamental questions about the purpose of financial institutions in society were left unanswered. The essay begins with clarifying its understanding of the financial crisis and the ignored issue of the societal role of...