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Osthoff, Peer. "Socially responsible investment." Berlin Logos-Verl, 2008. http://d-nb.info/992155460/04.
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Cox, Paul. "Institutional investment and responsible investing." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/98368.
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The four refereed journal articles and one government research report that form the core of this submission for a PhD represent my work in the subject area of institutional investment and responsible investing. The research, as a whole, has two major areas of focus. One area of focus is the behaviour of institutional investors. The research first examines different types of institutional investor and their demand for the characteristics of social and environmental performance within their equity portfolios. The research next examines the fund managers that institutional investors appoint to manage their assets. Attention is paid to the different locations of fund management as well as the features that determine the degree of competition between fund managers. The research examines these different fund management settings and the demand for the characteristics of social and environmental performance within their equity portfolios. A further issue investigated is whether different types of institutional investor pay greater attention to responsible investment when investing domestically than overseas. The second area of focus is the study of responsible investment based on grounded research methods. The main contributions are an assessment of how fund managers perceive that responsible investment achieves financial performance, the communication between fund managers and corporate directors for the purpose of responsible investment, the use of information and staff within responsible investment, and costs and charges associated with responsible investment. Both areas have contributed to policy debates and development, and have prompted other researchers to publish and undertake fieldwork. The commentary, which forms Part A of this submission, illustrates these features by reference to the five publications that are reproduced in their entirety in part B.
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Hoepner, Andreas G. F. "Essays on responsible investment, research output analyses and investment performance evaluation." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2130.
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This thesis includes four essays, of which each comprises two original contributions. Based on this thesis’ eight contributions, we add knowledge or understanding to the literatures on responsible investment, research output analyses and investment performance evaluation. First, we develop the first generic, reliable approach to benchmark research area output (e.g. journal articles or books), which we expect to appeal to governments’ increasing interest in monitoring their research funding investments. Second, we apply this approach to the research area of responsible investment, which is currently backed by an about $ 7 trillion industry. We find that the (quality weighted) quantity of responsible investment’s research output is statistically significantly under-proportional compared with peer research areas. One of several explanations for this result lies in the intransparency of the current responsible investment literature. Third, we develop an approach to research synthesis, which improves a research area’s transparency without experiencing many weaknesses of conventional literature reviews. We title this approach Influential Literature Analysis (ILA). Fourth, we apply ILA to the relatively intransparent responsible investment literature. One of our many findings is that responsible assets with their ceteris paribus under-proportional total risk might appear artificially unattractive when assessed by the most common investment performance measure, the Sharpe ratio, which is biased in favour of high risk assets due to its currently unsolved negative excess return problem. Fifth, we develop a generic, reliable and robust solution to the negative Sharpe ratio problem, which investors can customise according to their specific increasing incremental disutility of risk functions. Six, we generalise our solution to the negative Sharpe ratio problem, which allows us to solve the negative (excess) return problems of over twenty other investment performance measures. Seventh, we develop independent, statistically sophisticated tests of the sufficiency and quality of suggested solutions to the negative Sharpe ratio problem, since all existing tests a-priori assume the superiority of a specific solution. In contrast, our tests are only based on the Sharpe ratio itself and two basic axioms of investment theory. Hence, they are conceptually unrelated to our solutions. Eighth, we apply these tests using two different data samples to all existing solutions to the negative Sharpe ratio problem. We find that investors are best advised to use our solutions, the H⁶-, H⁷- or H⁸-measure, in their evaluation of investment performance from a Sharpe ratio like perspective.
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Drut, Bastien. "Socially responsible investment and portfolio selection." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/209829.
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This thesis aims at determining the theoretical and empirical consequences of the consideration of socially responsible indicators in the traditional portfolio selection. The first chapter studies the significance of the mean-variance efficiency loss of a sovereign bond portfolio when introducing a constraint on the average socially responsible ratings of the governments. By using a sample of developed sovereign bonds on the period 1995-2008, we show that it is possible to increase sensibly the average socially responsible rating without significantly losing in terms of diversification. The second chapter proposes a theoretical analysis of the impact on the efficient frontier of a constraint on the socially responsible ratings of the portfolio. We highlight that different cases may arise depending on the correlation between the expected returns and the socially responsible ratings and on the investor’s risk aversion. Lastly, as the issue of the efficiency of socially responsible portfolios is a central point in the financial literature, the last chapter proposes a new mean-variance efficiency test in the realistic case where there is no available risk-free asset.Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished
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MÅNSSON, JACOBSSON EMELIE, and TINA EDWALL. "The Impact from Sustainable Responsible Investment." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för industriell teknik och management (ITM), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-226169.
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Harnett, Elizabeth S. "Responsible investment and ESG : an economic geography." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2ea40d92-cec6-48a1-8461-c6bd29d09622.
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There is a growing awareness of, and commitment to, Responsible Investment (RI) in the institutional investment markets internationally. RI is defined as the consideration of environmental, social and/or governance (ESG) issues in long-term oriented investment decision-making. As the role of ESG in determining investment risk and opportunity becomes more evident, and as ESG data becomes more available, RI is increasingly seen as an area of potential investment innovation. This thesis applies institutional, evolutionary and relational economic geography theories to examine this trend, exploring the mainstreaming of RI through novel empirical and conceptual research. This thesis examines the investment learning processes and information channels available in Western liberal market economies of the UK, US and Australia. It adopts economic geography knowledge and innovation frames towards answering the question: 'Now that ESG information is more widely available in the investment markets, why has this not catalysed a greater shift towards RI integration in mainstream investment decisions?'. Learning, language and leadership factors within the institutional investment industry are all argued to help answer this question. This research uses a mixed method approach, with analysis based on a survey of 154 investment professions, 97 semi-structured interviews and a case of RI innovation. This thesis develops a conceptual framework of the communication channels and information sources used in investors' innovation-decision-process, drawing attention to the importance of both social and asocial learning processes in generating and sharing knowledge about climate issues within investment markets. Following this, the thesis examines the role of 'local buzz' and 'global pipelines' in facilitating access to, and uptake of, ESG information. Levels of buzz and pipelines are found to vary in different financial centres, and are facilitated by formal and informal networking linked to RI groups. Importantly, then, this thesis finds that both spatial and relational proximity influence investors' access to ESG information and RI knowledge. The second half of this thesis examines whether and how RI information, knowledge and practice can be integrated into existing individual and organisational decision-making frameworks. It highlights the need to better translate RI information into investment-relevant language, and provides an example of how environmentally-driven stranded assets can be reframed as a version of sunk costs, contributing novel spatial-temporal theorisations of this concept. Through an illustration of RI decision-making by the investment consultant Mercer and the University of Sydney endowment fund, this thesis highlights that the capacity to integrate RI through the investment chain does exist. However, willingness to do so is found to be hindered by institutional and organisational path dependent norms, reduced only in some firms by seeing RI as an innovative area of competitive advantage from growing client demand. This thesis therefore finds that RI is being adopted in increasingly more mainstream investment firms, but this is not always fully integrated throughout the firm, and that uptake is geographically varied based on exposure to networks of information and knowledge sharing, and institutional, organisational and individual norms. Ultimately, this thesis therefore contributes towards understandings of the processes underpinning the mainstreaming of RI, but also contributes to broader economic geographies of investment, knowledge sharing and innovation.
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Barwick-Barrett, Matthew. "The performance of socially responsible investment portfolios." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2015. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/77707/.
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A recent trends report estimates that the total value of US-domiciled assets under management using socially responsible investment (SRI) strategies is $6.57 trillion. This represents more than one out of every six dollars under professional management in the United States (Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, 2014). In Europe, a recent report by the European Sustainable Investment Forum reports that the total value of European assets under management using SRI strategies is in excess of €6.9 trillion (Eurosif, 2014). Consequently, the importance of SRI to financial practitioners and academics is considerable. This thesis examines the performance, risk and exposures of US SRI indices, UK SRI equity funds (domestic and global) and US SRI funds (large cap, mid-small cap, balanced and bond) to investigate a number of issues relating to the performance of SRI portfolios. The work highlights the potential psychological returns which may be related to investing in SRI funds through shareholder activism and discusses the relationship between the potential risks and returns that are associated with this form of investing. The study finds that the requirement to screen can detrimentally affect the performance of SRI portfolios, but that these effects are more pronounced for UK funds which predominately employ negative screening techniques, than US SRI portfolios (indices and funds) which principally employ positive and restricted screening methodologies. The investigation also discovers that SRI portfolios with smaller investment choice, such as those that can only invest in the UK stock market are more affected by SRI screening than those with large investment universes such as global or US equity funds. This finding is consistent with the smaller investment universe of an SRI fund, making it more likely SRI screening will affect the fund’s performance and risk. Post screening, a fund manager may find it more difficult to purchase assets with the potential to provide a good return or to diversify risk effectively. SRI screening also affects the sector exposures, industry exposures, systematic risk and idiosyncratic risks of UK SRI funds, indicating that screening can result in SRI portfolios holding significantly different assets from conventional funds. In addition, the intensity with which a UK SRI fund screens is shown to significantly affect risk-adjusted performance. Importantly, this study also finds that US SRI funds are more likely to vote affirmatively with shareholder proposals which relate to social and environmental issues than their conventional counterparts and are more likely to vote against company management on these issues. This finding is consistent with SRI investors receiving a psychological return through the shareholder activism of SRI funds.
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De, Klerk Jakob. "Private equity and responsible investment in Namibia." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/59814.
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Private equity (PE) firms are facing increasing pressure from their investors to consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in their investment processes. Few studies have been performed on ESG issues, which confine the understanding of ESG profiles to very few countries. For this reason there is a need to better understand whether responsible investing (RI) practices are restricted to certain countries or whether the drivers and maturation differ between PE markets. This paper investigates the extent to which PE firms incorporate ESG into their investment processes, focussing on the Namibian PE industry. This study was a qualitative study using data collected via 17 semi-structured interviews. These interviews included ten PE firms, three limited partners, two portfolio companies, the Namibian Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority and the economic policy advisory services department within the Ministry of Finance. Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software was used to process the data. Thematic coded analysis was performed on the data, and relationships were defined in accordance with the categorisation of themes.
The research found that while the Namibian PE industry does consider ESG factors within their investment practice, the integration of ESG factors in investment processes are somewhat limited. The Namibian PE industry is regulated, though ESG is not specifically addressed in the regulatory framework. Furthermore the drivers of and motivation for ESG differ between developed and developing markets, and limited partner education on ESG is needed to promote the integration of ESG factors in the PE industry.Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2017.
nk2017
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MBA
Unrestricted
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Nilsson, Marcus. "Four essays on socially responsible fixed income investment." Thesis, University of Reading, 2017. http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/73804/.
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Socially responsible investment (SRI) can be defined as an investment strategy that considers environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information, in addition to financial information, when analysing and conducting investments. The market for SRI has experienced a dramatic growth in recent years, outshining many other investment strategies. The size of the global SRI market now exceeds $21 trillion. These developments have attracted considerable attention from academic research, where the majority of studies have investigated if SRI performs significantly differently in comparison to conventional investments. Even though the global SRI market consists of approximately 40% fixed income assets, the overwhelming majority ofacademic studies have analysed the performance of SRI equity investment and left the area of SRI fixed income largely unexplored. This Ph.D. thesis comprises offour empirical essays and aims to contribute to the area of SRI fixed income. Progress into fixed income asset pricing models has been slow. Consequently, the first essay enhances the Elton et al. (1995) four¬factor model by introducing a duration factor, a global bond factor, and three exchange rate factors. The resulting nine-factor model can explain up to 95.42% ofreturn variations in fixed income fund portfolios and up to 99.97% of the return variations in individual fixed income funds in time series analysis. The second essay studies the performance of 120 SRI fixed income funds relative to conventional funds. lbis essay distinguishes itself from previous SRI fund studies by carefully addressing shortcomings identified in previous matching approaches by applying a firm matching approach. The third essay investigates if ESG expertise differentiates SRI fixed income funds in terms of their financial performance. The findings of this essay show that ESG engagement activities are a significantly differentiating performance factor. Specifically, funds from fund companies not involved in ESG engagement activities are found to perform significantly worse. The fourth essay investigates the relationship between responsible investing and bond performance, by constructing portfolios of bonds based on ESG ratings of the issuing company. The findings of this essay suggest that no news is good news in ESG bond portfolios. On the whole this thesis contributes greatly to the largely unexplored area of SRI fixed income investment.
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Schopohl, Lisa. "Essays on institutional investment and socially responsible investing." Thesis, University of Reading, 2017. http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/69599/.
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This thesis contributes to the growing body of research on socially responsible investing (SRI) and institutional investment. Throughout the three main chapters of the thesis, I empirically investigate how institutional investors incorporate environmental, social and ethical considerations into their investment practices. First, I assess the impact of different political dimensions on the equity holdings of 31 U.S. state pension funds. I provide evidence that pension funds with Democratic leaning members tend to tilt their portfolios more strongly towards companies with higher environmental and social performance and that pressures by Democratic state politicians intensify this tendency. Additionally, I show that the sample funds neither under- nor outperform on their politically motivated SRI holdings, implying that their SRI preferences are unlikely financially-driven. Next, I investigate how Scandinavian public asset owners balance their financial and ethical objectives through exclusionary screening. I empirically analyse the performance effect of the exclusion of “unethical” companies from the portfolios of two leading Nordic investors, Norway’s Government Pension Fund-Global (GPFG) and Sweden’s AP-funds. I show that the portfolios of excluded companies do not generate an abnormal return relative to the funds’ benchmark indices, indicating that the exclusion decisions generally did not harm fund performance. Finally, I evaluate the extent to which investors account for the financial materiality of environmental and social factors in their shareholder activism. I find that a considerable amount of investor resources is spent on advancing immaterial issues through shareholder proposals. While certain “dedicated” investors such as public pension funds, endowments, religious institutions and asset managers are better at targeting financially material issues, the overall shareholder base does not differentiate between the financial materiality, or otherwise, of a proposal. Material proposals neither receive greater vote support nor does the market react more positively to learning that a company has been targeted by a material proposal.
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Scharlau, Jan. "Socially responsible investment die deutschen und europarechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen." Berlin de Gruyter Recht, 2008. http://d-nb.info/999593455/04.
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Sleight, Richard. "Citizen participation within UK pension fund responsible investment decisions." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23381.
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Pensions funds represent the collective savings of millions of people and the decisions and actions they take can be greatly beneficial or detrimental to the global economy, society, and the lives of people around the world. The aim of this project is to investigate the possibilities of citizen participation in relation to responsible investment in UK occupational pension funds, and what the barriers and opportunities are for citizens, in this context pension holders, to participate in financial decisions made on their behalf. The research questions focus on the arguments for and against such participation, in general and in relation to using an online voting platform. Qualitative interviews with Responsible Investment Advocates are used to scope ideas around participation, and the study is grounded in a social constructionist theory of meaning. This project sits at the intersection of two fields: Responsible Investment and Participatory Communication for Social Change. The main findings of this project are that RI Advocates disagree over the necessity for such citizen participation, as a process for change and as a goal. The perceived benefits of citizen participation ranged from empowerment, accountability, power redistribution and structural change. Barriers to participation exist based upon the current investment system, with the main barrier perceived as a lack of demand from the investment industry, wider civil society, and significantly citizens. It was stated in interviews that citizen participation is a relatively ignored area within Responsible Investment, and therefore much can be learned from existing C4D research and practice.
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Lapointe, Vincent. "Essays on corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investment." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013AIXM1093/document.
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Notre thèse traite des thématiques de la responsabilité sociétale des entreprises (RSE), de sa relation avec la performance économique et financière de l’entreprise, et de l’investissement socialement responsable (ISR). Ces thématiques ont récemment gagné en popularité, favorisées par un contexte de crise économique et environnementale. Notre thèse se compose de quatre principaux chapitres. Notre premier chapitre est une revue de la littérature académique sur la RSE et l’ISR. Nous proposons une revue interdisciplinaire de la littérature académique partagée entre l’économie et les sciences de gestion (éthique appliquée aux entreprises, stratégie et finance). Notre second chapitre est une analyse empirique de la relation entre RSE et performance financière de l’entreprise sous l’angle du coût du capital. Nous nous intéressons à l’impact de la publication d’une notation de la politique de RSE d’une entreprise sur la liquidité de ses titres et la taille de sa base d’actionnaires. Nos troisième et quatrième chapitres sont des analyses des propriétés de portefeuilles d’ISR construits à l’aide de nouvelles méthodes d’allocations. Ainsi nous analysons comment des stratégies d’allocations basées sur le risque modifient la performance des portefeuilles d’actifs financiers émis par des émetteurs ayant une politique de RSE, et réciproquement comment un univers d’investissement composé uniquement d’émetteurs ayant une politique de RSE modifie les propriétés de ces allocations alternativesOur thesis examines corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how it is linked to a firm’s economic and financial performance, as well as socially responsible investment (SRI). With the current environmental and economic uncertainty, these issues are attracting increasing interest. Our thesis is organized in four chapters. Chapter 1 is a literature review on CSR and SRI. We propose an interdisciplinary review of the academic literature in both economics and management sciences (ethics applied to business, strategy and finance). Chapter 2 is an empirical analysis of the relationship between CSR and a firm’s financial performance in terms of cost of capital. We look at the impact of publishing an evaluation of the firm’s involvement in CSR on the liquidity of its stocks and the size of its investor base. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 are analyses of the characteristics of SRI portfolios built according to new allocation methodologies. We analyze how risk-based allocations impact the performance of the portfolios of financial products of issuers involved in CSR, and reciprocally, how a universe of investment composed of the financial products of issuers involved in CSR impacts the properties of these alternative allocations
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Aspvik, Maria, and Zahra Faridoon. "Responsible Investment : Can an investment company such as Ratos work through CSR’s five dimensions?" Thesis, KTH, Industriell produktion, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-101785.
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Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is a subject whereby enterprises execute their business with respect and responsibility towards the natural and the social environment, their own and their subcontractor’s labor and towards others whom it may concern. CSR is a phenomenon that is rapidly spreading and every day yet more enterprises and companies are joining the concept. One could claim that by performing CSR related work within the own enterprise the company’s brand could be improved and the consumers more satisfied, which in turn is good for business, and there are yet more long term reasons for an enterprise to perform CSR. For enterprises within the manufacturing industry or a service enterprise the CSR related work is more straightforward than the CSR performed within a public equity company, where CSR is translated into a more complex strategy. Ratos is a public equity company with headquarters in central Stockholm, Sweden. They have a great many holdings where the participation share is 60% or above. In some cases the participation share is 100%. How CSR is implemented in a company like Ratos is not clear, and therefore it is interesting to see how this type of work is performed within this company. Some even consider every single holding to be responsible for their own CSR strategy, and not a part of the investor's responsibility. Therefore CSR could be considered to be a less important subject for public equity companies. It’s a general belief that public equity companies don’t care much about how their holdings are doing business as long as they meet the goals for annual return on invested money. The purpose of this study is map out the CSR related work performed both within the public equity company Ratos, and the impact this have on their holdings CSR strategy. This mapping will be done by comparing the definition of CSR and the five dimensions this definitions holds against the collected data. This includes the economical responsibility, the responsibility towards the natural and the social environment, the stakeholder responsibility and the voluntary work performed. By comparing the five dimensions Dahlsrud, A. (2008) defines and the CSR initiatives by Ratos it could be proved that Ratos is executing a wide range CSR strategy. It could also be established that the CSR related work performed within Ratos is well documented, substantial and influenced by continuous improvement.CSR, Corporate social responsibility är ett begrepp som relateras till hur företag ska jobba med respekt och ta hänsyn till sina arbetare, miljön samt samhället de jobbar i. CSR är ett fenomen som sprider sig snabbt just nu och fler företag hoppar på trenden. Genom att jobba med CSR kan det argumenteras att kunder blir mer nöjda och företaget kan bygga en bättre image för företaget. Det finns många anledningar för företag att jobba mer med CSR vilket gynnar kunden men också företaget i det långa loppet. För företag som producerar varor eller säljer tjänster kan det vara lättare att jobba med CSR än för företag som endast investerar i andra företag. För investerings bolagen kan CSR vara ett mer komplicerat verktyg. Ratos är ett investeringsbolag med säte i Stockholm, Sverige. De har flertal innehav där det har en stor del av ägarskapet. Ratos äger ofta mer än 60 % i flera företag och 100 % i ett antal. Det som är intressant i ett investerings bolag som Ratos är hur de arbetar med CSR. Det är inte lika tydligt som hos andra företag. Det kan också anses vara mindre viktigt för företaget då investerings bolagen inte ses som den skyldige i många lägen, det ska vara innehavets ansvar att se till att jobba med CSR perspektiven. Det är också en generell uppfattning att investeringsbolagen inte bryr sig hur deras innehav arbetar så länge den önskade avkastningen möts. Syftet med detta projekt är att kartlägga arbetet som Ratos gör ur ett CSR perspektiv, både inom Ratos men också hur de influerar sina innehav och vad som krävdes ur ett CSR perspektiv från sina innehav. Denna kartläggning kommer att göras genom att jämföra definitionen av CSR ur fem dimensioner mot empiri. Här inkluderas det ekonomiska, miljö, intressenternas, sociala och volontär perspektivet. Jämförandet mellan de fem dimensionerna som Dahlsrud definierar och det arbete som Ratos gör visade att ett investeringsbolag kan arbete ur ett brett CSR perspektiv. Det kan också konstateras att det arbete som görs på Ratos är väl dokumenterat, påtagligt samt ständigt under utveckling. Fallstudien baseras på intervjuer, artiklar, hemsidor samt teori böcker.
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Wong, Victor (Siew Howe). "The Effect on Portfolio Performance of Diversification into Socially Responsible Investments: Evidence from an Australian context." Thesis, Griffith University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365432.
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Socially responsible investment (SRI) has grown significantly in the last ten years.
Many international organizations have become increasingly involved in the movement
towards SRI. The move towards SRI investing is being driven by institutions such as the
United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing whose membership of financial
institutions, including asset owners and institutional investors, holds assets totalling
US$13 trillion. This growth was promoted further by the 2006 launch of the Principles
for Responsible Investment (PRI), with an agreement by leading pension funds, asset
managers and consultants to develop new strategies to embed environmental, social and
governance issues (ESG-issues). The tremendous growth has caught the attention of
investors and fund managers that are seeking alternative assets and markets to improve
their portfolio performance. There are claims, based on recent evidence, that SRI can
provide investors’ portfolios with better returns. The thesis aims to investigate this
claim.
The thesis examines the effect of diversifying into SRI in terms of risks and returns
from the perspective of an Australian investor, on the performance of a portfolio
consisting of stocks and bonds. In examining this aim, the thesis first identifies and
evaluates the performance of the optimal SRI portfolio which consists of Australian and
international SRI assets. Subsequently, the thesis constructs an optimal portfolio
consisting of stocks, bonds and SRI based on the identified SRI portfolio, whose
performance is then examined. In pursuit of the objective, the thesis conducts three
interconnected studies. Firstly, an analysis of the inter-linkages between the Australian
and other SRI markets worldwide. Secondly, an examination of the impact of
international diversification on the performance of SRI portfolios based on an
Australian perspective. Thirdly, an investigation of the impact of diversification into
SRI assets on the performance of a portfolio of stocks and bonds.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Business School
Griffith Business School
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Binmahfouz, Saeed Salem. "Investment characteristics of Islamic investment portfolios : evidence from Saudi mutual funds and global indices." Thesis, Durham University, 2012. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4440/.
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The study critically reviews the application of the Sharia investment screening process, from both Sharia and practical perspectives. In practice, there appears to be inconsistencies in the Sharia investment screening criteria among Islamic investment institutions, especially in terms of the tolerance level, as well as the changing of the Sharia rules. This certainly affects the confidence in the Sharia screening criteria standards, which might adversely affect the Islamic mutual funds industry. The non-income generating aspects, such as social and environmental concerns, are not incorporated in the contemporary Islamic investment screening process. This seems to be rather paradoxical, since it contradicts the Sharia-embedded ethical values of fairness, justice and equity. The thesis contends that external audits regarding the implementation of Sharia rules should be adopted to ensure the compliance of the investment with Sharia guidelines. Furthermore, it is desirable for Sharia boards to adopt corporate governance practice and take proactive roles, especially in Muslim countries, in order to influence companies to adopt Sharia-compliant investment practices. The tolerance levels of conventional finance activities of companies in Muslim countries should be re-evaluated and lowered in the Islamic investment screening criteria. This is partly due to the popularity and wide availability of Islamic banking and alternative Sharia instruments to interest-based finance, coupled with the fact that Muslim shareholders form the majority and hence, can vote to influence companies to adopt Sharia-compliant financing modes. In addition, the study provides empirical evidence that the Sharia screening process does not seem to have an adverse impact on either the absolute or the risk-adjusted performance of Islamic equity mutual funds in Saudi Arabia, compared to their conventional counterpart equity mutual funds and also compared to their market benchmarks. This is regardless of the geographical investment focus subgroup examined and the market benchmark used (whether Islamic or conventional). Furthermore, the systematic risk analysis shows that in most cases Islamic equity mutual funds in Saudi Arabia tend to be significantly less exposed to market risk compared to their conventional counterpart equity mutual funds, and compared to their conventional market benchmarks. Thus, the assumption that Sharia investment constraints lead to inferior performance and riskier investment portfolios because of the relatively limited investment universe seems to be rejected. This implies that Muslim investors in Saudi Arabia can choose Islamic investments that are consistent with their beliefs without being forced to either sacrifice performance or expose themselves to higher risk. The investment style analysis also shows that the Sharia screening process does not seem to influence Islamic equity mutual funds in Saudi Arabia towards small or growth companies compared to their conventional counterparts of similar geographical investment focus. Moreover, the study provides empirical evidence that the performance difference between Islamic and conventional socially responsible indices is insignificant despite applying different sets of screening criteria. However, Islamic indices tend to be associated with relatively lower systematic risk compared to their conventional socially responsible counterparts. Therefore, Islamic investment portfolios can be marketed to socially responsible investors who share similar beliefs in terms of excluding certain industries such as tobacco, alcohol, pornography, defense, etc., in spite of no financial filters being used by conventional socially responsible investors. This finding is especially appealing in Muslim countries where there are usually no mutual funds categorized as socially responsible, but rather Islamic. Moreover, the study also provides empirical evidence that incorporating conventional sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process does not lead to inferior performance or higher exposure to systematic risk. The results indicate that regardless of the restriction used - whether Islamic, socially responsible or Islamic socially responsible - restricted investment portfolios do not seem to be associated with inferior performance or higher exposure to risk. This finding opens the door for Sharia scholars and Muslim investors to reconsider broader social and environmental aspects as part of the Sharia investment screening process. With regards to investment style, Islamic and Islamic socially responsible indices seem to be skewed towards growth cap as compared to their conventional and conventional socially responsible indices, while Islamic socially responsible also leans towards a large cap. This implies that despite the performance similarity between, Islamic, conventional and conventional socially responsible indices, the returns driver of each type of investment tends to be different.
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Drake, Jordan C. "Labor Union Proposals, Socially Responsible Investing, and Pricing and Investment Models." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1399938140.
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Cronin, John Daniel. "From ethical investment to investment ethics: Towards a normative theory of investment ethics." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2004. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/15979/1/John_Cronin_Thesis.pdf.
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This study explores the contemporary practice of Ethical and Socially Responsible Investment and concludes that it is based on an ad hoc construct of empirically derived principles, driven mainly by the commercial self-interest of large financial institutions and fund managers. It explores the relationship between investment and morality, to posit a background theory of investment ethics. The study then proposes
a move away from the narrow focus of ethical investment to a broader concern for investment ethics. The study introduces the discipline of investment ethics and examines the criteria that form the basis of morality in investment decisions. The resultant theory is intended to be of practical significance in the business and
investment domains and to assist potential investors to evaluate investment opportunities in the context of a consistent set of substantive normative ethical principles.
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Cronin, John Daniel. "From ethical investment to investment ethics: Towards a normative theory of investment ethics." Queensland University of Technology, 2004. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/15979/.
Full textAbstract:
This study explores the contemporary practice of Ethical and Socially Responsible Investment and concludes that it is based on an ad hoc construct of empirically derived principles, driven mainly by the commercial self-interest of large financial institutions and fund managers. It explores the relationship between investment and morality, to posit a background theory of investment ethics. The study then proposes a move away from the narrow focus of ethical investment to a broader concern for investment ethics. The study introduces the discipline of investment ethics and examines the criteria that form the basis of morality in investment decisions. The resultant theory is intended to be of practical significance in the business and investment domains and to assist potential investors to evaluate investment opportunities in the context of a consistent set of substantive normative ethical principles.
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Tippoo, Ann-Maree. "Responsible investment in the South African pension fund industry: a critical analysis." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29049.
Full textAbstract:
South African regulation requires pension funds and their trustees to act in the best interest of their beneficiaries, according to their fiduciary duty. According to the preamble to Regulation 28 of the Pension Fund Act of 1956, this includes responsible investing (RI). However, the South African RI landscape, barring a few exceptions, is dominated by financial institutions other than pension funds who do not necessarily have the same legal and fiduciary imperatives. Using data gathered from semi-structured interviews with key people in the industry a grounded theory approach and content analysis this research addresses why there is limited RI action on the part of pension funds. The findings show that pension fund trustees lack understanding of RI as well as the full scope of their fiduciary duties mainly due to issues with trustee competency, resource allocation, and legacy behaviour and interpretations of legislation. Additionally, there is little accountability to both the regulators and members in this regard. The importance of addressing these reasons is brought into focus by considering the role of pension funds as constituents of the social security system, as savings institutions, as allocators of capital, and as part-owners of companies making RI consideration a natural and integral part of decision making. Based on the findings, this paper recommends appropriate training interventions for trustees, in addition to a review of trustee selection, appraisal and tenure. Furthermore, industry consolidation and agreement around RI frameworks and definitions would serve to improve understanding of RI. To improve accountability, the paper recommends the introduction of non-prescriptive, demonstrative reporting requirements. Important themes for further research include the competency of South African trustees and the development of frameworks for the understanding of RI in the industry.
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Beja, Bongiwe Andisiwe. "Understanding the role played by Pension Fund Trustees and Investment Consultants in Responsible Investment Strategies in South Africa." Thesis, University Of Cape Town, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29929.
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Responsible investing (RI) often used as a synonym for Sustainable Investing, is a global phenomenon which simply refers to the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and factors when making investment decisions albeit losing conventional financial criteria in making such decisions. This study was undertaken to interrogate and understand the status quo in terms of the ability of two of the key players in the RI market in South Africa, to fulfil their responsibilities in the implementation of responsible investments principles in practice. The participants in focus of the study are firstly, the asset owners being the pension fund trustees in South Africa where the aim is to discover whether trustees in the pension fund industry are well equipped to play their role in implementing responsible investment principles and strategies when performing their fiduciary duties which encompass decisions made around capital allocation, asset manager selection and selection of service providers. Secondly, the service providers being the appointed investment consultants on pension funds in the country where the aim is to discover and articulate the extent of influence and role played by the service providers to the pension fund trustees in the decision-making value chain of the way in which the retirement funds assets are ultimately managed and invested on behalf of the retirement fund. To achieve the above-mentioned aims, online surveys were conducted for both the South African pension fund trustees as well as South African investment consultants. The questions in the survey comprised a combination of open ended and closed ended questions with Likert scales being used. The data was predominantly qualitative in nature and therefore thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data from both sets of surveys conducted. Key findings of this study show that whilst South African pension fund trustees understand and recognise RI implementation as forming part of their fiduciary duty, there is a heavy reliance on appointed services providers particularly investment consultants in terms of their fund’s RI policy and the RI strategies they employ. In order to keep abreast of industry developments in RI and to ensure their funds stay in line with emerging good and best practice, the trustees receive assistance and guidance from their appointed investment consultants. Investment consultants play a significant role on RI matters in that they provide training on ESG and RI implementation to trustees and proactively table RI matters when meeting with the trustees. Many of the consultants however are of the view that training and education of the trustees is pertinent in the uptake of RI in the industry and that this drive must be asset owner led. Based on the results of the study it is recommended that the education of trustees on RI related matters be further investigated. In particular, additional research on the education, the frequency thereof as well as the provider of education is required. The study also highlights the need for further research on the implementation on specifically impact investing as an RI strategy in South Africa. It can also be concluded from this research that global industry bodies such as United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, CFA Society and local bodies such as Association of Savings and Investments in South Africa, Institute of Retirement Funds Africa, Batseta Council of Retirement Funds in South Africa and the Financial Sector Charter Council could be contributors to a practical policy around asset consultant reliance and trustee education in the implementation of Responsible Investment strategies for all pension funds and their beneficiaries in South Africa.
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Luvhengo, victor. "Public pension funds and socially responsible investment in South Africa: a case study of the Public Investment Corporation." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29012.
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Socially responsible investment (SRI) and now commonly known as sustainable responsible investment is starting to gain a momentum in South Africa among asset owners and managers. Of a particular interest is that the leading public pension fund manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) which invests on behalf of the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF) has a significant interest in driving this phenomenon in South Africa. In actual fact, GEPF was the first public asset owner in South Africa to subscribe to the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment in 2006. This is not surprising because a pension fund such as the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) is one of the largest investors through the PIC in the South African economy and the fund is equivalent to 1/3 of the country's GDP with almost R1 trillion assets and has investments in all sectors of the economy. Given the significant power that this fund has in the South African economy, it was of particular interest for this research to link whether SRI agenda in the PIC is also embedded in a broader strategy/policy around South Africa economic development and by whom is this agenda is being driven in the PIC? Furthermore, this research helps to understand the key drivers, challenges, enablers for the PIC to advance SRI agenda in South Africa. The research adopts a case study approach to understand how entrenched is the SRI agenda in big public pension asset managers in South Africa. The research found that over the past few years, the PIC SRI strategy focused on equity and developmental investing with low focus towards fixed income and property asset classes. In general, the research has found that the PIC SRI Strategy responds to issues that that meet government objectives of ensuring growth and economic development of South Africa. In all four asset classes, the PIC SRI Strategy broadly addresses issues such as black economic empowerment, skills development, economic growth, economic and social infrastructure (roads, energy, housing, and education), enterprise development and job creation. However, the government has not taken any concrete steps for greater collaboration with the PIC on ESG issues in South Africa. PIC is advancing its SRI strategy mainly through active share ownership and developmental impact investing.
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Hachigian, Heather. "The consequences and management of ambiguity for long-term investors." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b3fe14a2-329b-4239-8d04-7ce4ceeb2efa.
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This thesis responds to the question 'how can sovereign wealth funds manage ambiguity in their decision-making so as to implement substantive long-term investment programmes?' The rapid growth of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) over the past decade, due largely to booming commodity prices, has inspired optimism among many for their potential to contribute to the sustainability goals of society. SWFs are unconstrained by many of the factors that have kept pension funds from realising their potential as long-term investors and so they are well placed to make significant investments in sustainable projects with positive externalities such as infrastructure and to act as effective monitors of corporate behaviour. But many obstacles stand in the way. At the institutional level, transparency has replaced tight financial market regulation, resulting in entrenched short-termism. At the organisational level, many problems facing long-term investors are too complex to fit into traditional models of decision-making. Decentralisation is necessary to respond to this complexity but it conflicts with the coordination necessary to achieve economies of scale and scope. There may not even be an ideal outcome to coerce or incentivise agents to achieve. Taken together, these problems are understood in this thesis as ambiguity, which results from differences in interpretation and irreconcilable conflict. In contrast, most governance frameworks focus on problems of uncertainty and risk, due to missing information. This thesis has three aims. The first is to reframe the governance challenge for longterm investing in terms of managing ambiguity. Second, this thesis aims to reconcile ambiguity with legitimacy that depends on expert decision-making and provides one right answer to a clearly specified problem. Third, it provides specific examples of how ambiguity, if managed, can improve decision-making. That is, ambiguity forces us to engage with subjective reality but also provides us with a framework to do so. Ambiguity can act as a built-in adaptation mechanism to hold a coalition of diverse interests together in a rapidly changing environment, to identify synergies where others see only trade-offs and to overcome collective action problems. These constructive properties of ambiguity are explored in the four substantive chapters of this thesis, alongside specific recommendations for changes to SWF governance structures to transcend barriers to long-term investing. The first half of the thesis focuses on the earlier stages of the investment process and draws on specific examples of two SWFs. Chapter III investigates ambiguity in the Alberta Heritage Fund's inter-generational equity mandate. If managed in the form of self-reflexivity, ambiguity can contribute to overcoming the time inconsistency problem in the context of sub-national resource wealth funds. Chapter IV focuses on the irreconcilable conflict in the Norwegian Fund's ethical investment policy. It argues that agents use their discretion to interpret the policy and, in doing so, are able to align it more closely to the Fund's long-term investing mandate. The second half of the thesis extends consideration to long-term investors more broadly. Chapter V explores the delegation of shareholder engagement to portfolio managers to leverage synergies in an investment management firm. It finds that introducing ambiguity into incentive design can overcome the multi-task incentive problem. Chapter VI brings concepts explored in earlier chapters to bear on its analysis of a new market for public infrastructure assets. It argues that ambiguity provides the space necessary to bring diverse actors together to transcend collective action problems and create new institutional arrangements to support a more efficient market structure. Taken as a whole, this thesis is optimistic that, as those claiming to have the one right answer are increasingly proven wrong, ambiguity will earn its rightful place in the study and practice of finance.
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Mooij, Stephanie. "The (mis)alignment of ESG perspectives in the investment chain." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2fce07f2-0f77-4c0c-9dc1-f0a4aa8bfd35.
Full textAbstract:
As evidenced by the rapid increase of United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) signatories, the integration of environmental, social and governance indicators (ESG) in investment decisions has become a popular topic. However, despite its popularity, there is no consensus among practitioners on what this actually means and how it should be tackled. The obvious lack of standardization is reflected by divergent ESG rating procedures, incomparable company sustainability reports and the widely differing strategies by asset managers and asset owners. This is a substantial hurdle as it can cause misalignment of perspectives within the investment chain, which keeps ESG from being pushed up the agenda. There appear to be substantial struggles on the road to ESG integration and several questions arise; are the perspectives on ESG integration aligned between companies, asset managers and asset owners? Where do possible obstacles on the road to responsible investment reside, what are they and how can they be overcome? My main findings are four-fold. First, I find ESG reporting fatigue among companies due to the sheer number of ESG ratings and rankings. Companies should not let this overwhelm them and be clear that they only respond to a handful. Investors should only use it as a starting point and ensure that it does not become a substitute for a real conversation with their portfolio companies about ESG. This interest is necessary for top management to sign off on sustainability initiatives. Second, I find that asset owners are not as convinced of the business case of ESG as asset managers and companies are. This is often reflected in the way they select, monitor and review their asset managers. Third, the lack of in-depth ESG due diligence by asset owners likely lets asset managers get away with decoupling statements from actions. More specifically, it appears that ESG and finance are often still separated. Lastly, companies are more reactive than proactive when it comes to ESG efforts. The main driver for them to embark on their ESG journey is the consumer. We can therefore play a significant role in creating a more sustainable world, either as the beneficiary or the consumer.
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Young, Anna Estelle. "On trying to make investment responsible: an analysis of integrating environmental, social, and corporate governance issues into institutional investment processes." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/9793.
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Abstract: Proponents of responsible investment propose that by integrating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues into institutional investment analysis and decision-making processes better long term decisions will be made, resulting in better fund performance and better corporate conduct. Utilising an economic rationale, the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) and its signatories seem to be arguing that ESG issues are mispriced risks that need to be integrated at all stages of the investment process, across all asset classes. And further that ESG costs usually borne by society misrepresent costs that over time may be borne by the investor. Specifically, the study traces the early developments of the ESG integration proposition at the UNPRI, how the case study organisation became a signatory, and how two of its listed equity investment teams set about integrating ESG issues into their investment processes. The study illustrates how the proposition of ESG integration gathered momentum and garnered a lot of energy and movement as it shifted, changed properties, and grew stronger. As a result, it appears some investment processes were altered. In fact, a phenomenally large actor-network has been enrolled and mobilised in the name of the proposition and multiple forms of ESG integration were observed. Yet, there was also resistance and struggles, and indeed, what has changed remains open to question. In particular, the complexity of accounting for ESG issues from a user’s perspective cannot be underestimated, nor can ESG issues be easily reduced to quantitative measures fit for use by analysts in their valuation models. Furthermore, there is ambiguity about what counts as material for investors and what counts as material for society, because in order to get the attention of institutional investors, many ESG issues seem to have been given up because they are not deemed financially material.
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Asplund, Therese. "How Socially Responsible Investment Is Defined : An analysis of how SRI investment management firms put ethical criteria into practice." Thesis, Linköping University, Linköping University, Department of Water and Environmental Studies, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-9575.
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Several organisations have called for clarifications on sustainable investment. The aim of this study is to map and compare the ethical criteria used by Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds in their assessment of companies. My attention is also to seek for clarifications on the definition on SRI. A theoretical framework has been used to identify core issues of socially responsible investment. The areas of interest are charitable giving, environmental technologies, negative and positive screening and shareholder activism. The empirical material consisted of qualitative interviews with 4 fund managers from 5 investment management firms in addition to written documents on the funds’ ethical criteria. The conclusions are that all of the funds use negative criteria in their assessment of companies, with similarities in what may be considered as unethical activity and differences in the extent. Most of the funds also seek to identify better-managed companies through an assessment of how companies comply with international agreements. Differences occur in the choices of international agreements as well as the minimum criteria for investing. Most of the investment management firms engage in shareholder activism with the aim to influence the companies’ corporate behaviour, thus with different levels of engagement. Some have dialogue with whom they invest in, some favour the idea of communicate with companies they do not invest in as well. Furthermore, the results of this study show that investments in environmental technologies are rare since these companies are too small. When it comes to charitable giving, donations to charity may be seen as SRI or may not be seen as SRI depending on if the concept refers to investment criteria.
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Shokeen, Priti. "Institutionalization of socially responsible investment in Canadian pension funds : a grounded-theory approach." Thesis, Kingston University, 2008. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/20287/.
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The academic literature's emphasis, in the role of pension funds in socially responsible investment, remains focused on macro discussions such as the suitability of SRI for pension fund investment and normative discussions of how pension funds can be catalysts for change towards global sustainability. It is also noted by some commentators that via pension funds, the environmental, social and governance issues that underpin SRI are becoming a part of mainstream investment. These macro level claims provide very limited evidence of, or insights into, the actual functioning or close-to-reality experiences of pension funds in the context of SRI, which is vital in fully comprehending the role of pension funds in achieving sustainable business activities. This thesis investigates and analyzes the micro level developments and dynamics that hinder or facilitate integration of SRI into pension fund investment to address the above mentioned divide. Using a grounded theory approach, the thesis presents a theoretical model of institutionalization of SRI into pension fund investment. Taking a social constructionist perspective and the related concept of human agency, it proposes that cognitive factors, coupled with structural context, determine whether a pension fund integrates or discards SRI strategies in its investment processes. The model is based on in-depth case studies of three pension funds, each with certain distinguished and similar characteristics, to provide judicious explanations of what affects the institutionalization of SRI. The thesis explains how pension fund trustees and managers customize and internalize a position on SRI based on particular 'constructions' or 'interpretations' of the concept and of fiduciary responsibility. It also posits that the context of each pension fund presented in the thesis is different and that although all three have similar broader objective, i.e. to provide retirement income to its members, each has specific investment objectives, constraints and institutional environments that are unique. Thus, all pension funds or institutional investors do not have a common investment approach towards achieving their goals and cannot be categorized as principals of economic rationality in the capital market. The duality of context and agency in creating investment processes and changes within that is stressed in this thesis.
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Cormack, Bradley Alexander. "Evaluating the share performance of socially responsible investment on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/36251.
Full textAbstract:
Socially responsible investing (SRI) integrates environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into the investment decision-making process. Growing ESG concerns and the uncovering of corporate scandals have catalysed the substantial growth in SRI portfolios worldwide. Notwithstanding its increasing popularity, barriers to further SRI growth have been identified. Traditional investing practices suggest that theoretically, SRI may underperform conventional investment strategies. However, despite the vast amount of literature on SRI, empirical studies have yielded a mixture of results regarding fund performance. The JSE SRI Index was launched in 2004 to promote transparent business practices. It was discontinued at the end of 2015 succeeded by a new Responsible Investment Index established by the JSE in association with FTSE Russell. The aim of the research was to evaluate the share performance of the JSE SRI Index from 2004-2015. Additionally, the indices were categorised by environmental impact to further analyse disparity among share returns. The study was also divided into two sub-periods, 2004-2009 and 2010-2015, with the latter following the endorsement of integrated reporting by the King III Code as a listing requirement in 2010. A single-factor Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) was used to assess differences in risk-adjusted returns. Engle-Granger and Johansen tests were employed to explore the possibility of a cointegrating relationship between the indices. No significant difference between returns was observed for 2004-2009, with the SRI Index exhibiting statistically significant inferior risk-adjusted returns for the latter half of the study. Overall, a significant difference between share returns was found, with CAPM results suggesting that the JSE SRI Index underperformed the All Share Index by -2.33% per annum throughout the time span of the study. Engle-Granger and Johansen test results indicated the existence of a cointegrating relationship over the first half of the study. However, there was no cointegration between the two indices for 2004-2015, which may be attributed to no significant relationship found for the latter years. Results support the notion that investors pay the price to invest ethically on the JSE. Inferior risk-adjusted returns associated with SRI may be a major barrier to its development in South African markets.
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Marigo, Beatrice <1991>. "Socially Responsible Investment: integrating financial and non-financial criteria into a portfolio selection model." Master's Degree Thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10579/9994.
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Over the last few years the importance of sustainability and social responsibility has grown rapidly. Many events, including natural disaster, climate change, the high population growth, have drown attention of investors. Therefore, there is a growing awareness among investors which address their investments according not only to their ethical personal values, but also toward investment processes that integrates social, environmental and ethical considerations. The object of this thesis is Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) that is the discipline that aims at combining profitability and social commitment.
First, we carry out an analysis of the structural components (Environmental, Social and Governance factors, SRI strategies, SRI indexes) and of the historical development of Socially Responsible Investments. Second, we provide an overview of the dimension and of the characteristics of the SRI market in Europe and in the World. In the last part of the thesis, moving from recent contributions in the literature, we consider a portfolio model that integrates ethical and financial characteristics of assets in the portfolio selection procedure.
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Hörnmark, Pontus. "Responsible Investments: Should Investors Incorporate ESG Principles When Investing in Emerging Markets? : With Descriptions from Sub-Saharan Africa." Thesis, Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Economics, Finance and Statistics, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-26732.
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The aim of this thesis is to test whether incorporating principles of responsible investment will have an impact on financial performance when investing in emerging markets. A developed market is included to bring up potential structural differences between emerging and developed markets. Principles of responsible investment suggested by the UN concerns environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. The financial performance of highly rated ESG portfolios was evaluated by using the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and the Fama French 3-factor model. Alpha has been used as the performance measurement. Results reveal that incorporating principles of responsible investment by using a best-in-class approach generates statistically significant and positive alphas in emerging markets, while the developed market of the U.S generates an insignificant alpha.
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Nilsson, Jonas. "Consumer decision making in a complex environment : Examining the decision making process of socially responsible mutual fund investors." Doctoral thesis, Umeå universitet, Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-35607.
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During the last few decades, "regular people" have become increasingly involved with investing in the stock market. One way of doing this, which has become more and more popular, is to invest in mutual funds. The mutual fund industry has, due to its explosive growth, been described as a success story of the 20th century. These days, sources report that over 70% of the Swedish population actively invests in mutual funds. This thesis is an investigation into consumer decision making regarding one specific type of mutual fund: Socially Responsible Investment (SRI). SRI profiled mutual funds are different from "regular" mutual funds in that they incorporate social, ethical, and environmental (SEE) criteria. In this manner, SRI profiled mutual funds could be said to have two separate dimensions. The regular financial dimension has the purpose of generating a high level of financial return while managing risk. The socially responsible dimension, on the other hand, focuses on incorporating SEE issues into the investment process. However, consumers that desire to choose mutual funds that will both perform well financially and have a good socially responsible dimension face a more difficult decision than consumers who choose to invest in "regular" mutual funds. As each of the dimensions come with its own set of challenges which the consumer must overcome, choosing an appropriate combination of these is a difficult task. In this manner, consumers of SRI profiled mutual funds have to navigate through a complex decision making environment to arrive at a good choice. Based in this notion of decision making in complex environments, this thesis investigates how consumers combine their "traditional" financial objectives with their "additional" SEE consideration and examines the impact of personal factors related to these two areas on consumer investment in SRI profiled mutual funds. Four separate essays on these topics, each investigating a specific stage in the Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (1968) consumer decision making process, are presented. Moreover, in order to understand how complexity impacts consumer decision making in the area, the results of each study are analyzed against a conceptual framework focusing on the complexity of the market. The results show that consumers of SRI profiled mutual funds care about both financial and SEE issues. However, how consumers combine these in their decision making differs. Factors, such as the stage of the purchase decision making process, personal abilities, preferences, and perceptions are found to impact consumer decision making. Against this background, this thesis generates an increased understanding of consumer decision making in complex decision making environments in general and of SRI profiled mutual funds in particular.
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Fransman, Madeleine, and Beatrice Häll. "Green bonds - market barriers and investor motives." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-358227.
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This study addresses the green bond market, a young and upcoming market that has received increasing attention in recent years. Academic literature in the field is limited, therefore theaim of this study is to identify investors’ main barriers and motives behind green bondinvestments. In order to examine Swedish fund companies’ requirements to invest in greenbonds, questionnaire responses were linked to interviews. The overall result shows the importance of financial incentives in investment decisions. In terms of market barriers, the low return of green bonds was the main reason that investments were restrained. It has been stated that green bonds are issued at a premium due to an additional reporting related administrative cost for the issuers. Another defined limit was the concern for issuers not fulfilling their 'green' obligation. The main motive behind green bond investments was to invest in a sustainable environment followed by the possibility to gain a combined financial and environmental return. In addition to the financial attributes, investors find a utility function in the green bonds that account for the premium price that these investors seem to accept. Furthermore, social norms are shown to influence the investment decision to a lesser extent.
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Hamrin, Lisa, and Maria Orehag. "Etiska Fonder : - Ett steg mot en mer hållbar värld?" Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för hållbar samhälls- och teknikutveckling, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-12618.
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Today, there is no uniform definition of what an ethical fund is. Fund management companies choose themselves what they believe is ethical and not. The lack of the definition makes it difficult for consumers to understand why these funds are special compared to other funds. The purpose of this study is to examine three Swedish companies; KPA Pension, Swedbank Robur and Folksam, to obtain a clearer picture of the concept ethical funds and its definition. The study describes each company's view of Ethics and how they may affect other companies to work for a more sustainable world. The paper will also discuss how fund companies make a good balance between ethics and profit. The study is based on interviews with people involved in Corporate Social Responsibility and Responsible Investments. The results suggest that companies themselves have difficulties to define what an ethical fund is, but they all believe they have a good chance to influence the various companies. Research on ethical funds and their returns have shown different results. This makes it difficult to determine if ethics and returns go hand in hand or if ethical funds instead leads to a lower risk, with a smaller yield.I dagsläget finns det ingen enhetlig definition för vad en etisk fond är. Fondbolagen väljer själva vad de anser är etiskt och inte. Den uteblivna definitionen gör det svårt för konsumenter att förstå vad som utmärker just de här fonderna, gentemot andra. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka tre svenska företag, KPA Pension, Swedbank Robur och Folksam, för att på så sätt få en klarare bild av etiska fonder och dess definition. Studien beskriver vad de olika företagen har för syn på etik och hur de kan påverka de företag de är delägare i. Uppsatsen kommer även att diskutera hur fondbolagen kan få en bra balans mellan etik och avkastning. Studien bygger på intervjuer med personer som arbetar med Corporate Social Responsibility och ansvarsfulla investeringar. Resultatet tyder på att företagen själva har svårt att definiera vad en etisk fond är, men att de alla anser att de har en bra chans att påverka de olika företagen. Forskningen angående etiska fonder och dess avkastning har visat olika resultat. Vilket gör det svårt att bestämma om etik och avkastning går hand i hand eller om etiska fonder istället medför en mindre risk, med en mindre avkastning.
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Brown, David. "Socio-Economically Responsible Investing and Income Inequality in the USA." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för utbildning, kultur och kommunikation, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-35739.
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To add to the tools currently available to combat income inequality in the United States an investment fund type is proposed, justified, described, and created using historical asset returns from 1960 to 2015. By focusing on two socio-economic indicators of poverty, inflation and unemployment rates, this fund, when marketed to investors who live near, at, or below the poverty line, seeks to increase returns during times of increased strain on the economies of the poor. Multiple hurdles are proposed and affirmatively answered to this end and a fund type and corresponding four factor model that realized hypothetical excess returns fitting the requirements of a successful investment strategy was developed and evaluated. With the increasing importance of socially responsible investment practices an investment bank who maintains a fund of this type could potentially see financial and reputational benefits.
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Heimann, Marco. "Experimental Studies on Moral Values in Finance : Windfall Gains, Socially Responsible Investment, and Compensation Plans." Thesis, Toulouse 1, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013TOU10065/document.
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Cette thèse concerne des décisions dans des situations complexes qui impliquent des valeurs économiques et moraux. Chapitre 2 introduit les décisions morales en contexte économiques en proposant les situations d’un intérêt empirique. Le sujet du chapitre 4 est de restaurer la confiance dans les fonds communs de placement. Les principaux résultats suggèrent que les effets positifs de l’approche ISR sont tributaires de la similarité des valeurs de l’investisseur individuel avec celles du fonds. Chapitre 5 dresse un portrait de l’acceptabilité sociale de la rémunération des dirigeants et celle des politiques de rémunération générales d’une entreprise. Le principal résultat indique l’existence de groupes de personnes qui sont jugent a partir de points de vue personnels sur la justice des rémunérations. Chapitre 6 introduit un jeu expérimental (le dilemme conceal-reveal) qui permet l’étude des personnes ayant le choix entre révéler et cacher des avantages qui seraient jugés comme non méritée par d’autres. Le résultat principal est que les choix ne reposent pas sur une analyse coûts-bénéfices. En conséquence, faire appel aux valeurs moraux peut être une alternative intéressante dans de telles situations. Enfin, les deux derniers chapitres (Chapitre 7 et Chapitre 8) des implications théoriques et pratiques de ces résultats empiriquesThis doctoral dissertation addresses the problem of decisions involving economic and moral values. It reviews moral decisions in the economic domain, focused on the situations of empirical interest in this dissertation (Cahpter 2). Chapter 4 asks if SRI can help to restore trust in mutual funds. Main results suggest that the positive effects of SRI techniques are highly dependent on the similarity in values between the individual investor and a given fund. Chapter 5 draws a portrait of laypersons’ acceptability of a company’s executive compensations and general remuneration policies. The main result identifies four clusters of individuals, who decide based on personal views about the justice of remunerations. Chapter 6 introduces an experimental game (the conceal-reveal dilemma) in which people have the choice between revealing and concealing benefits that others deem as undeserved. The main result is that people rely on decision strategies other than cost-benefit analysis. Consequently, appealing to peoples’ moral values is an alternative to financial incentives in situations with undeserved benefits. The last two chapters (Chapter 7 and 8) discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our empirical findings
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Rocchia, Bénédicte, and Léo Béchet. "Sustainable Investment performance: investor's ethical dilemma : A comparative study of the US, UK and Eurozone sustainable and conventional indices." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-45016.
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Jonsson, Therése Naomi. "http:// Myanmar : A case study on Internet freedom and responsible investment in Myanmar’s emerging Telecom scene." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-225847.
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Myanmar is one of the least connected countries in the world, with an estimated Internet penetration at just over one per cent. The country was ruled by a rigid military regime for half a century, who had a firm grip on the media and brutally cracked down upon any political dissent. In 2011, in a surprise move, a process of reform and a transition towards democracy began under the leadership of President Thein Sein. As a result, foreign investment in the country’s lagging telecom sector is now emerging. This thesis is a case study that partly aims to identify the major challenges facing Internet freedom as it relates to the human rights discourse and partly explores how two foreign telecom companies, Telenor and Ooredoo, are approaching responsible investment as they enter the country. Methodologically, the study is based on interviews, some of which were conducted during a two months field visit in Myanmar in 2013, and thorough document analysis. The research concludes that the major challenges facing Internet freedom in Myanmar are a deficit legal framework and the absence of digital literacy, which has contributed to irresponsible practices of hate speech in the online environment. Both Ooredoo and Telenor demonstrate an awareness of the complexities in Myanmar, whilst Telenor has a stronger formal commitment to respecting human rights.
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Guyatt, Danyelle Jann. "Identifying and overcoming behavioural impediments to long term responsible investment : a focus on UK institutional investors." Thesis, University of Bath, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.428350.
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Mohd, Aini Ainoriza. "The development and rationale of sustainable and responsible property investment in Malaysia : a modified institutional framework." Thesis, Kingston University, 2014. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/29991/.
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This thesis examines within the institutional framework settings how the concept of Sustainable and Responsible Property Investment (SRPI) has developed and to the extent SRPI has been adopted in a developing country, namely Malaysia. The question of Sustainable and Responsible Property Investment (SRPI) interpretation is important in this context given that developing countries represent the most rapidly expanding economies and most lucrative markets for property investment. Specifically the thesis examines the understandings of SRPI and the concept link with SRI, and the drivers and barriers to SRPI practice. Specifically, the thesis investigates how particular Malaysian Property Investment organisations (MPIOs) have interpreted the concept of SRPI, and whether the overall concept of SRPI has taken similar or different form than the practice in developed market. The study used a mixed-method approach. It uses triangulation of data collection methods and multiple techniques including content analysis and Delphi technique. The study used a modified institutional framework to aid in explaining, interpreting and understanding the divergence/convergence of SRPI in the developing country context. Content analysis of selected public listed property investment organisations in Malaysia i.e. real estate investment trusts (REITS), property companies and institutional investor reports from 2008 to 2011 proceeded through line-by-line analysis and coding according to inductively generated categories. The results from content analysis revealed a narrow representation of SRPI in the MPIOs reports. Despite the requirement by the Bursa Malaysia to report on CSR and sustainability activities, there were minimal disclosures on environmental and social impacts caused by their property management and investment activities, on most reports shows emphasis of MPIO’s on philanthropic activities. The Delphi study aims to explore, examine and build on the views of experts and influential people in SRPI. It was also felt necessary to combine local expertise and experts from developed countries. Overall, SRPI in Malaysia takes different form than SRPI in countries where is SRPI mainstreamed. The study points in the direction of SRPI “cross-vergence”, whereby global convergence and local divergence forces are interacting synergistically. The National and Cultural religious value in particular are two strong elements supporting the drivers of divergence of SRPI. Through the rigorous exploration this thesis contributes to the further understanding of sustainable and responsible investment and the drivers. The proposed framework has provided the principles, whereas the empirical work translated the principles into practice. The results of the thesis contribute to the literature by providing new evidence on the drivers of SRPI in emerging market. These findings would be of use to property investors and other actors in the industry, including fund manager.
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Zaulochnaya, Ya-Brouwer Irina. "The praxis of responsible investment in South Africa: a holistic case study of Evolution One Fund." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003899.
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At the beginning of the 21st century the public interest in environmental and social sustainability, and corporate governance grew exponentially fuelled by recurring ecological and financial crises. The market demand for cleaner production and corporate transparency created opportunities for sustainability entrepreneurs in a variety of industries, including financial markets and investment management. An increasing number of financial institutions across the world now offer ethical or socially responsible products to meet the environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspirations of their clients. In the US, according to the Social Investment Forum (SIF), responsible investment (RI) assets reached US$ 2,29 trillion in 2007 (Mitchell, 2008). The European Sustainable Investment Forum (EuroSIF) estimated that total European SRI assets reached EUR 5 trillion in 2009 (Wheelan, 2010). In June 2011 the International Finance Corporation (IFC) reported that at the end of 2010 professional sustainable investment under management in South Africa approximately equalled US$ 122,6 billion (IFC, 2011:44). The statistics describing the rapid growth in the ESG-type investments are, however, complicated by the variety of names and definitions used to describe this emerging type of investment and a general market uncertainty about what constitutes the practice of RI. The purpose of this case study is to better understand responsible investment principles and practice as seen through the eyes of a South African private equity fund, which specializes in clean technology.
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Lundström, Simon, and Rasmus Rosberg. "Socially Responsible Investments? : -An empirical study on why investors do not invest in SRI." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-138259.
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In today’s society sustainability has become a highly discussed topic due to the increase in global average temperatures and changing ecosystems. Despite differentiating views regarding the origins of these changes, a proportion of the society have begun to adjust themselves into having more green profiles. This has led to an uprising among the number of investors who focus on making socially and responsible investments. However, on the contrary, there is still a substantial proportion of investors who do not invest in environmentally, animal and human friendly products. Which in turn may negate the pace of the ethical and sustainable development of our society. This issue leads to this study’s research question: What are the reasons or hindrances as to why students at Umeå School of Business and Economics do not invest in SRI financial products? The main purpose of this paper is to explore why individuals at Umeå School of Business and Economics do not invest in SRI financial products. Furthermore, the paper aim to have an extra emphasis on information. In addition to the main purpose, the thesis will investigate if any links exist between investing ethically/sustainable and one’s daily behaviour. In order to explore these purposes, the authors uses past research within this area together with theoretical concepts regarding “Investment Decisions”, “Markowitz Portfolio Optimisation Model” and “Pro-Social Behaviour”. To conduct this study, the paper uses a quantitative approach with both primary and secondary data. The primary data is collected through a survey sent out to 917 students at Umeå School of Business and Economics. In order to achieve the purposes of this study, the data from non-SRI investors was used to analyse their investment behaviours. The results of this study indicate that the majority of non-SRI investors are men. Furthermore, the findings illustrate that the expected financial return of SRI and risk when investing is significantly related to the probability of not investing in SRI. Additionally, the results point at that the demeanour of not investing in SRI products are significantly due to a lower level of knowledge concerning financial return of SRI. In conclusion, the authors argue that the attraction of capital ethical and sustainable investments can be greatly increased by educating investors in SRI products. Consequently, the increase in awareness and attraction of capital can aid solving the ethical and sustainable issues that exists today.
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Horwitz, Martin. "The Implementation of United Nation´s Principles for Responsible Investments among Swedish Investors : A paradigm shift within reach?" Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-57733.
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Responsible Investments is currently paving new paths in the financial industry. UnitedNation´s Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) has in four years attracted over 700signatories in 36 countries. The principles are voluntary and kept in an open non-governingstructure. The lack of formal definitions and the actual value or effects of the UN PRIadoption is difficult to assess. Many researchers today are involved in attempts to measure thefinancial performance of responsible investments. This study takes a different stand point andinvestigates the motivation for joining UN PRI, how the implementation has been carried outand what the effects are, by the use of a case study. The six largest investors in terms of assetunder management (AUM) among the Swedish UN PRI signatories were interviewed, and aqualitative based semi structured interview was used. A structural analysis was carried out onthe results. Institutional Theory was used to explain the motivation for joining UN PRI andserved as the theoretical framework. Interpretation of UN PRI´s implementation differed insome instances to a large degree between the respondents. Transparency was uncovered as amajor success factor to the investors in support of decision making. All interviewedsignatories had developed their own way of working with UN PRI in terms of organization,priorities and the attempts to measure its effects. There is still a great need for moreknowledge around how these principles shall be implemented successfully and become part ofmainstream investments.The target audience for this paper is academics or business professionals with an interest inwhy and how UN´s principles for responsible investments are adopted by the financialindustry.
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Романьок, Т. В. "Особливості стану та тенденцій розвитку ринку відповідального інвестування країн Європи." Thesis, Сумський державний університет, 2013. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/30878.
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Відповідальне інвестування є однією з особливостей сучасної концепції стійкого розвитку, оскільки передбачає не лише досягнення ефективного економічного зростання через отримання високих фінансових результатів, а й забезпечує соціальний захист суспільства та мінімізацію негативного впливу на навколишнє середовище.
При цитуванні документа, використовуйте посилання http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/30878
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Fathima, Shamila Dawood Lebbe Mohamed Razik. "Foreign investment and sustainable development: A critical analysis from the Sri Lankan legal perspective." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2019. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/134421/1/Dawood%20Lebbe%20Mohamed%20Razik_Fathima%20Shamila_Thesis.pdf.
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This thesis identified the deficiencies in Sri Lankan foreign investment laws in creating a reliable nexus between foreign direct investment and sustainable development. It first determined the criteria for a balanced investment law using the lens of sustainable development and the principles of environmental law. It examined the relevant Sri Lankan laws, bilateral investment treaties, model laws and approaches of different actors, considering these criteria, to assess their ability to promote sustainable development in pursuit of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It demonstrated the need for effective legislation to regulate inward foreign direct investment to promote sustainable development.
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Bychenko, D. O. "Responsible investment as a source of financing for sustainable development and its goals in international financial markets." Master's thesis, Sumy State University, 2019. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/75732.
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Кваліфікаційна магістерська робота фокусується на важливості існування соціально відповідальних інвестицій та їх впливу на фінансовий ринок. У цій роботі було проаналізовано теоретичні та правові основи соціально відповідального інвестування та був зроблений аналіз світового та вітчизняного досвіду в цій галузі. Також було сформовано та порівняно оптимальні інвестиційні портфелі для відповідального та традиційного способу інвестування, та окреслено основні завдання та перспективи майбутнього розвитку соціально відповідальної інвестиції.
Основна мета цього дослідження - довести важливість соціально відповідального інвестування та сформувати оптимальний портфель відповідно до норм відповідального способу інвестування.The master’s level qualification paper focuses on the importance of existence of socially responsible investing and how it influences the financial market. In this paper theoretical and legal groundwork for SRI was analyzed, and was provided an analysis of world and domestic experience in this field. Also was made and a formation of optimal investment portfolios and compared portrolios for responsible and convential way of investing. And was outlined the main challages and perspectives for future development of the socially responsible investment. The main purpose of this study is to prove the importance of SRI and to form an optimal portfolio according to the norms of SRI.
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Reich, Anna Lisa, and Christian Sass. "Responsible Investing in Exchange-Traded Funds : An empirical analysis of information obstacles faced by retail investors." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för industriell teknik och management (ITM), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-296569.
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In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, the European Union has devised a sustainable finance strategy that relies on the engagement of both institutional and private investors in responsible investing to deliver on those goals. Several studies have found high interest in responsible investing among retail investors, but a relatively low engagement therein. Research up to this point on the responsible investing experience of retails investors has not established a clear cause for the gap between interest and engagement and has particularly neglected the increasingly popular investment type of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This thesis therefore aims to shed light on the obstacles that prevent retail investors from investing in responsible ETFs. The research is organized by a five-stage framework for the responsible ETF investing process that identifies potential obstacles in the first three process stages problem recognition, information search, and evaluation of alternatives. An empirical analysis was performed by means of an online survey of European retail ETF investors and non-ETF investors (n = 101). The results indicate that the majority of retail investors experience a gap between their interest and engagement in responsible ETF investing. The most difficult stage of the responsible ETF investing process appears to be the evaluation of alternatives. Incomparability of information on responsible ETFs and a lack of labels and standardization present obstacles that impair investors’ ability to evaluate different options for responsible ETFs. The incomparability of information can be ascribed to the divergence of environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings. The survey further found a high support among ETF investors for the planned standardizations and regulations by the EU and increased willingness to invest in responsible ETFs if these measures are implemented. These findings emphasize the role of regulations in facilitating responsible investing and pave the way for more comprehensive studies on the information needs and obstacles of European retail ETF investors.Inom ramen för målen för hållbar utveckling och Parisavtalet har Europeiska unionen utformat en hållbar finansstrategi som bygger på att både institutionella och privata investerare engagerar sig i ansvarsfulla investeringar för att uppnå dessa mål. Flera studier har visat stort intresse för att göra ansvarsfulla investeringar bland privatinvesterare, men ett relativt lågt engagemang däri. Forskning som är aktuell om privatinvesterare erfarenheter har inte visat någon tydlig orsak till klyftan mellan intresse och engagemang och har särskilt försummat den alltmer populära investeringstypen av börshandlade fonder (ETF). Avhandlingen syftar därför till att belysa de hinder som hindrar privatinvesterare från att investera i ansvarsfulla ETF:er. Forskningen är organiserad av ett femstegsramverk för den ansvarsfulla ETF-investeringsprocessen som identifierar potentiella hinder i de tre första processtegen för problemigenkänning, informationssökning och utvärdering av alternativ. En empirisk analys utfördes med hjälp av en online-undersökning av europeiska ETF-investerare och icke-ETFinvesterare (n = 101). Resultaten visar att majoriteten av privatinvesterare upplever ett gap mellan deras intresse och engagemang för ansvarsfull ETF-investering. Det svåraste steget i den ansvariga ETF-investeringsprocessen verkar vara utvärderingen av alternativ. Ojämförbarheten mellan information om ansvarsfulla ETF:er och brist på klassificering och standardisering utgör betydande hinder som försämrar investerarnas förmåga att utvärdera olika alternativ för ansvariga ETF:er. Informationens ojämförbarhet kan tillskrivas skillnaderna mellan miljömässiga, sociala och styresmässiga (ESG) betyg. Undersökningen fann vidare ett stort stöd bland ETF-investerare för EU:s planerade standardiseringar och regler och ökad vilja att investera i ansvarsfulla ETF om dessa åtgärder genomförs. Dessa resultat betonar regelverkets roll för att underlätta ansvarsfulla investeringar och banar väg för mer omfattande studier om informationsbehov och hinder för europeiska ETF-privatinvesterare.
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Tefera, Bizuayehu. "The role of media reported weather shocks on mutualfund capital flow : A comparison of socially responsible- and conventional funds." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-172581.
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Identifying factors that affect the flow of mutual fund capital and betweenmutualfund types hasthe potential, among others,to relief fund management and investors from unnecessary administrative costs. This study investigated the role media reported weather shocks have on socially responsible and conventional mutual trust funds’capital flow.The study also has compared the magnitude of influence media reported weather shocks has on capital flow between socially responsible-and convectional mutualtrustfunds.It gives conclusionafter empirically studying all accessible socially responsible mutual trust fundswith relevant accessible financial data, originated, and actively traded in the Swedish financial market with the Swedish currency (Kronor) as well as taking conventional mutual trustfundswith similar maturity. And, the study result shows that media reported weather shocks has statistically significant role in the flow of capital, on bothsocially responsible-and conventional mutual funds in Sweden. It also shows that there is no significant difference in the role media reported weather shocks play between the two fundtypes. The result is concurrent with Hirshleifer & Shumway (2003)’s study which indicate that weather affecting investors mood and behavior. The result is interesting as it implicates to the psychological and emotional factorsplaying a significant role in affecting the flow of investment capital in general, in contrast to the rational economic behavior characterized by fund return and risk performance.
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Ho, Ching-ching Mary, and 何晶晶. "Socially responsible investment indices in Asian markets : merging stakeholder theories with social construction for improved index construction methodology." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/193511.
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The growth of the managed investment industry brings with it the potential for institutional investors to exert their influence on boards of listed companies to deliver strong and sustainable growth. The concepts of socially responsible investment (SRI), responsible investment (RI) or ethical investment (EI) have become part of mainstream investment practices in many financial markets. While SRI is largely a qualitative concept, its survival and adoption by the mainstream investment community may, in part, be due to the formalising of its concepts into language that investors, asset managers and analysts can more readily understand: the benchmark index.
SRI indices may hold the key to attracting attention to ESG issues in listed corporates and to help bring about positive outcomes in sustainable development. Figures show SRI investments in emerging markets are minimal when compared to those in developed markets but emerging markets hold great potential for growth and development of these tools.
This research develops a tool for bringing together social construction theory and stakeholder theory in understanding the construction of SRI Indices and in development of new indices.
The core of this research is an analysis of SRI indices in three major emerging markets of Hong Kong, India and China, together with an analysis of different perspectives of SRI in Asia. The purpose is to identify opportunities to building SRI indices through a stakeholder engagement approach.
The research was conducted over several phases between October 2008 and August 2010 and can be defined by three different studies:
1. a comparative study on SRI indices and their ESG criteria;
2. a comparative study on SRI indices and their stakeholder engagement approach; and
3. an analysis on the feasibility of building SRI indices in Asian markets.
The findings from the three studies indicate three main arguments. First, ESG assessment and criteria of SRI indices does have an impact on the creditability and value of the SRI indices. Due to the lack of transparency on the ESG assessment and criteria, SRI investors and other stakeholder groups are deterred from adopting SRI indices as SRI tool.
Second, stakeholder engagement is essential for SRI indices. And lastly, SRI indices in emerging markets, especially in the three studied markets, are attractive to both global and local SRI investors; however, these SRI indices need to include local ESG contexts to reflect the actual ESG concerns of the societies and avoid blindly following developed markets’ SRI index model, which in the end become unrealistic and unpopular to investors and stakeholder groups.
We recommend that stakeholder engagement in index criteria and corporate assessment be widened and deepened; that governments and stock exchanges can play a pivotal role in SRI development and should take the lead. We also recommend that SRI indices strengthen the institution of corporate research to rely less on secondary data when making their corporate assessments.published_or_final_version
Kadoorie Institute
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy
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Adrianto, Fajri. "The role of fund families in socially responsible investment (SRI) funds : the spillover effect and cross-subsidization strategy." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2016. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/101164/1/Fajri_Adrianto_Thesis.pdf.
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This thesis aims to fill the gap in the SRI fund literature by examining the role of fund families in the flow and investment strategy of individual SRI funds. It examines spillovers in cash flow resulting from the existence of superior (poor) performing SRI funds and investigates the existence of cross-subsidization between SRI family members. It provides evidence of positive spillover effect from having star SRI funds on the monthly cash flow of their SRI siblings. It also finds evidence of cross-subsidization where the performance of winning funds is more likely to be subsidized by their peer losing funds.
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Lundin, Sara, and Patrik Vesterlund. "Avkastning med ansvar : vikten av ett ansvarsfullt ägande." Thesis, Högskolan på Gotland, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hgo:diva-1139.
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Traditionally, it has been argued that companies are only responsible towards their shareholders, to maximize the profits. But lately it has changed into another way of responsibilty. It has become of great importance to demonstrate sustainable long-term values for stakeholders to identify with. This thesis aims to clarify the banks’ definition of responsible investment and what criteria they assume when talking about such kind of investments. Furthermore, the thesis intends to examine how the banks in their role as an agent can contribute so their customers can achieve responsible investments. The issues dealt with are: What criterias must a responsible investment meet according to the Swedish banks? and How can the Swedish banks contribute so their clients' investments falls under what is defined as responsible investment?The conclusions of this study show that to conduct a dialogue with companies that violate norms and principles is considered more responsible, than to exclude companies and divest holding. A responsible investment is thus an investment on which banks are active owners and influence companies through dialogues.Traditionellt sett har det hävdats att företag endast har ett ansvar gentemot aktieägarna. I takt med globaliseringen och en ökad medvetenhet om hur företag påverkar omvärlden, blir trycket allt större på att organisationer och företag ska ta ett ansvar bortom årets resultat. Påtryckningarna kommer främst från företagens intressenter och utgörs av deras krav på företagets verksamhet. För att ett företag ska kunna överleva i en föränderlig omvärld är det av stor vikt att företaget kan uppvisa hållbara värderingar som intressenterna långsiktigt kan identifiera sig med. Företagsledningen måste därför acceptera att det finns andra mål än vinstmaximering och vara redo att arbeta med flera parallella målsättningar av olika slag. Det är genom detta arbete som företaget måste hitta vägar att möta dessa krav och på så vis axla sitt ansvar gentemot omvärlden. SRI, Socially Responsible Investment, går i linje med att företagen ska förmå att ta sitt ansvar. SRI medför att aktieägarna genom sina investeringar ges en möjlighet att utöva påtryckningar på företagen, att integrera CSR-arbetet i sin verksamhet, samtidigt som de får ekonomisk avkastning. På en internationell nivå är FN:s principer för ansvarsfulla investeringar, UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), kanske det mest betydelsefulla initiativet för att kombinera ett ansvarsfullt agerande med ekonomisk avkastning. Principerna förser investerare med ett ramverk för att ställa krav på företagen att implementera ett arbete avseende miljö- och socialt ansvar, samt frågor som rör bolagsstyrning i företagens verksamheter. Denna uppsats syftar till att bringa klarhet i vad som, enligt de ledande bankerna i Sverige, avses med ansvarsfulla investeringar och vilka kriterier bankerna utgår från när de talar om den här typen av investering. Vidare studeras hur bankerna i sin roll som agenter kan verka för att kundernas placeringar blir ansvarsfulla investeringar. Frågeställningarna som uppsatsen behandlar lyder: Vilka kriterier utgår Sveriges ledande banker från när de definierar en ansvarsfull investering? samt Hur kan Sveriges ledande banker verka för att deras kunders placeringar faller inom ramen för ansvarsfulla investeringar? Studien visar att de ledande bankerna i Sverige följer Principles for Responsible Investments när de talas om ansvarsfulla investeringar. Respondenterna och bankerna har genomgående definierat en ansvarsfull investering som en investering där ägaren är aktiv i sin roll och påverkar bolagen att leva upp till ESG-kriterierna. Bankerna är i sin roll som agenter av stor betydelse för dialogen med bolagen för att kundernas placeringar faller inom ramen för ansvarsfulla investeringar. Att föra en dialog med bolag som bryter mot normer och principer anses mer ansvarsfullt än att exkludera bolagen och avyttra innehavet.