The power of ethical investment in the context of political uncertainty (original) (raw)
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A statistical analysis of uncertainty for conventional and ethical stock indexes
The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2018
This study estimates and compares …nancial uncertainty for two classes of ethical assets (Islamic and socially responsible) against the conventional US stock market. To this end, in line with Granger and Poon (2003), we use the class of asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity modeling to measure uncertainty for three major stock indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Index, Dow Jones Islamic Index, and Dow Jones Sustainability Index, over the period 1999-2017. Our …ndings indicate that contrary to expectations, conventional and ethical investments show high comparable levels of uncertainty, but vary with phases of the business cycle. Furthermore, we provide sig-ni…cant and cyclical impulse response reaction functions between uncertainty measures, suggesting further evidence of uncertainty spillovers. These …ndings could help investors to better rebalance their portfolios with regard to uncertainty change.
The impact of global risk on the performance of socially responsible and conventional stock indices
Equilibrium, 2017
Research background: In the last decades social responsible investment has evolved into an important and influential investment class. What supports then the development of SRI? The neoclassical approach suggests that the attractiveness of investment should result from the risk-return relationship that is satisfying for the investor. However, the performance analysis of SRI vs. conventional investment, conducted in numerous research papers, often delivers contradictory conclusions. If financial factors could not explain the phenomenon of SRI, nonfinancial factors may have played a decisive role in the formation of modern SRI market. Purpose of the article: The purpose of this paper is to analyze financial investment perfor-mance of socially responsible vs. respective conventional indices in the periods of high, low and unidentified global risk. Therefore, a following research hypothesis was verified: SR indices perform financially better in high-risk periods than in low-risk periods...
Does ethics improve stock market resilience in times of instability
Economic Systems, 2019
This paper compares the resilience of ethical (Islamic and socially responsible) indexes among five developed (US, UK, Japan, Canada, Australia) and three emerging markets (Brazil, India, South Africa) during the period following the 2008 subprime crisis. It relies on a multivariate CAPM-EGARCH model that accounts for sudden changes in volatility through the application of an iterated cumulative sums of squares (ICSS) algorithm on daily data over the sample period 2008–2014 to model time-varying volatility and ensure reliable estimates. The study confirms the lower systemic risk associated with Islamic indexes during the bearish period and reports that SRI, despite being more subject to systemic risk, offered higher alphas in highly integrated markets, while Islamic indexes performed better in less integrated ones. The evidence also reveals a very limited increase in the models’ predictability power from the integration of sudden changes in volatility into the EGARCH models during the full sample period. This limit is more marked during the bearish sub-period. Our findings have important implications for international investment and portfolio diversification perspectives in times of financial downturn.
Do socially responsible investment indexes outperform conventional indexes?
2012
The question of whether more socially responsible (SR) firms outperform or underperform other conventional firms has been debated in the economic literature. In this study, using the socially responsible investment (SRI) indexes and conventional stock indexes in the US, the UK, and Japan, first and second moments of firm performance distributions are estimated based on the Markov switching model. We find two distinct regimes (bear and bull) in the SRI markets as well as the stock markets for all three countries. These regimes occur with the same timing in both types of market. No statistical difference in means and volatilities generated from the SRI indexes and conventional indexes in either region was found. Furthermore, we find strong comovements between the two indexes in both regimes.
Socially Responsible Investments: An International Empirical Study Of Time-Varying Risk Premiums
This paper empirically analyses the performance of Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) by applying an asymmetric BEKK GARCH model which estimates conditional systematic risk and varying risk premiums. We evaluate the performance of SRI from an international perspective, comparing sustainable indexes with conventional indexes, and we apply our model to three regions: the USA, Europe, and Asia Pacific. We respectively compare the Dow Jones Sustainability United States Index, the Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index, and the Dow Jones Sustainability Asia/Pacific Index with conventional indexes, namely the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Dow Jones Europe Index, and the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Index. Our model estimations are based on weekly data from January 2004 to November 2013. Our results show that sustainable indexes exhibit lower risk premiums than conventional ones. However each of the three regions studied has its own specificity in terms of investor behavior toward SRI, including the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Ethical Dow Jones indexes and investment performance: international evidence
Investment Management and Financial Innovations, 2016
This study examines the relative importance of the Shariah-Compliant Dow Jones market indexes to capture the dynamic behavior of stock returns at economy and industry levels. The analysis indicates that ethical investment has only an insignificant influence on the performance of stock market returns for both the economy and industry levels. Further, alternative measures of investment performance including the Carhart and Habit Formation models have been used to examine the behavior of the Shariah-Compliant Dow Jones market indexes. The findings suggest a negative market timing ability with both Islamic and conventional indexes. While Islamic indexes are growth focused, conventional indexes are value focused. Further, when investigating the performance of Islamic and conventional Dow Jones indexes during the recent financial crisis, there is evidence supportive of Islamic indexes against conventional ones. For sector groupings, the results indicate that parameter estimates are not co...
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. Abstract This study examines the relative importance of the Shariah-Compliant Dow Jones market indexes to capture the dynamic behavior of stock returns at economy and industry levels. The analysis indicates that ethical investment has only an insignificant influence on the performance of stock market returns for both the economy and industry levels. Further, alternative measures of investment performance including the Carhart and Habit Formation models have been used to examine the behavior of the Shariah-Compliant Dow Jones market indexes. The findings suggest a negative market timing ability with both Islamic and conventional indexes. While Islamic indexes are growth focused, conventional indexes are value focused. Further, when investigating the performance of Islamic and conventional Dow Jones indexes during the recent financial crisis, there is evidence supportive of Islamic indexes against conventional ones. For sector groupings, the results indicate that parameter estimates are not consistent, suggesting that Islamic indexes are sector oriented. These results are explained to be a consequence of less diversification in Islamic indexes, leading to higher risk in some sector groupings such as technology and consumption services.
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING IN THE GLOBAL MARKET: THE PERFORMANCE OF US AND EUROPEAN FUNDS
2012
This paper investigates the style and performance of US and European global socially responsible funds. Several specifications of the return-generating process are applied as well as their corresponding conditional versions.Most European global socially responsible funds do not show significant performance differences in relation to both conventional and socially responsible benchmarks. US funds and Austrian funds show evidence of underperformance. By applying conditional models, we find evidence of time-varying betas but not of time-varying alphas. With respect to investment style, we find evidence that socially responsible funds are strongly exposed to small cap and growth stocks. Although these results are consistent with previous studies, they uncover some misclassification issues in these funds. Finally, we also document a significant home bias for global socially responsible funds. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Performance of Socially Responsible Portfolios - Do Economic Conditions Matter?.pdf
In a first of its kind, this paper examines the performance of various socially responsible stocks portfolios as compared to general stocks portfolios and market portfolio using return and various risk-adjusted measures over the period January 1996 - December 2013 and over different business economic conditions. Besides the conventional risk-adjusted measures, we have also used modified Sharpe ratio, double Sharpe ratio, M2 measure, alpha based on three factor Fama-French model and Famas decomposition measure. Further we have checked for the impact of economic conditions (recession or boom) on the alpha and slope coefficients. We have also examined whether single factor CAPM is sufficient to explain cross sectional variations across portfolios or we need a multi-factor model (like Fama-French three factor model). We find that despite having higher risk, socially responsible stocks portfolios generated significantly higher returns and hence outperformed other portfolios on the basis of all risk-adjusted measures as well as net selectivity returns during both recession and boom periods. The results uphold even with the use of Fama-French three factor model for estimating excess returns. The empirical results, besides augmenting the existing literature on performance evaluation, clearly indicate that investors in India have become more socially conscious as the stock market is rewarding socially responsible companies well in terms of higher returns (on risk adjusted basis). The study supports the view that socially responsible investing is boon for investors in India. Therefore, regulators, policy makers and mutual funds should construct and make available various socially responsible investment products to initiate the movement of socially responsible investing in India.
Socially responsible funds and market crises
Journal of Banking & Finance, 2013
Compared to conventional mutual funds, socially responsible mutual funds outperform during periods of market crises. This dampening of downside risk comes at the cost of underperforming during non-crisis periods. Investors with Prospect Theory utility functions would value the skewness of these returns. This asymmetric return pattern is driven by the mutual funds that focus on environmental, social, or governance (ESG) attributes and is especially pronounced in ESG funds that use positive screening techniques. Furthermore, the observed patterns are attributed to the socially responsible attributes and not the differences in fund management or the characteristics of the companies in fund portfolios.