We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based on 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings...

Interest in Social, Environmental, Ethical and Trust (SEET) in banking has experienced a rapid growth over the last decade. This paper provides the first overview of SEET issues in banking. The overview introduces international initiatives such as: the United Nations Environmental Programme...

This chapter discusses social, environmental and trust issues relating to business and finance in a historical context. Social issues relating to the concerned societal groups emerged since the mid of the 20th century and have had increasing impact on business ever since. Environmental issues...

Depth of outreach in microfinance is conceptualised as the degree to which a microfinance institution serves (very) poor clients. However, this concept is commonly approximated in academic research by 'average loan size'. This rough proxy has previously also been used by policy makers such as...

While the relationship between outreach and financial performance (CFP) of microfinance institutions (MFIs) is increasingly well researched, next to nothing is known about the relationship between broader measure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of MFIs and their CFP. In light of the...

In their pioneering work, Hong & Kacperczyk [HK] (2009) document a significant outperformance of so- called sin stocks: publicly traded companies involved in producing alcohol, tobacco and gaming. Drawing on theories of neglected stocks and segmented markets, the authors suggest this...

Several recent studies led by Hong & Kacperzcyk (2009, Journal of Financial Economics) document that companies in industries perceived as sinful - so called sin stocks (i.e. alcohol, tobacco, gambling) - deliver a significant and positive abnormal stock market performance. This potentially...

We pursue the first large scale investigation of a strongly growing mutual fund type: Islamic funds. Based on an unexplored, survivorship bias adjusted dataset, we analyse the financial performance and investment style of 265 Islamic equity funds from twenty countries. As Islamic funds often...

We contribute to the responsible investment literature by pursuing the first morphologic analysis of the responsible investment process. Morphologic analysis decomposes a process in its relevant variables and defines the thinkable properties of these variables. By generating new combinations of...