Evidence to date on the performance of Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) has almost exclusively been conducted within equity markets. We provide new evidence on the potential of SRI for other asset classes, by assessing the performance of SRI fixed-income funds. This is the first...

This paper questions the contribution that socially responsible (SR) screening makes to mutual fund performance. We propose a new decomposition of the variability of SR mutual fund returns making it possible to isolate the contribution of SR screening and compare it with the other traditional...

What do asset managers believe regarding the financial performance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment strategies? We address this question by exploring the relationship between fund managers’ co-ownership and portfolio ESG performance. Managers with more “skin in the...

As “sin” stocks and “brown” stocks generally earn higher returns than “green” stocks, fund managers face a trade-off between profitability and sustainability preferences when investing in environmental, social and governance (ESG). We explore the investment styles of ESG funds in the...

In this article, we analyze the possibility to do well, while doing good from a passive portfolio management strategy. In this analysis, we distinguish the regions Europe and the US and refer to the stock price data of composites from the most important indices in these regions. Based on these,...

We test the performance of two ESG score-driven quantitative signals on a large, multi-national crosssection of European stock returns. In particular, we ask whether in the cross-section, the cost of equity capital is more strongly affected by the (upward) “slope” (identified as momentum...

This paper examines the role of mutual funds in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a fund level holdings-based CSR score, we find that a mutual fund's CSR score is positively related to a firm's future CSR standings. This relationship is not just driven by high-CSR funds selecting...

The last two decades have shown us the growing importance of corporate, social and governance programs, as executives, investors and regulators have become increasingly aware of these programs' potential to mitigate corporate crises and build solid social reputation. Thus, mutual funds that...

We offer a factor model for classifying socially responsible mutual funds and measuring their performance. Our factor model consists of six factors, the four widely used factors of market, small-large (SMB), value-growth (HML), and momentum, and two social responsibility factors, reflecting the...

Two competing hypotheses, value enhancing and value discounting, state that implementing socially responsible corporate policies can have positive or negative effects on firm value. This paper tests how a specific type of social responsibility–corporate equality–affects firm value. Corporate...