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Environmental Mutual Funds: Financial Performance and Managerial Abilities

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  • Fernando Muñoz
  • Maria Vargas
  • Isabel Marco

Abstract

This article analyzes the financial performance and managerial abilities of a sample of US and European socially responsible (SR) mutual funds. The period analyzed commences from January 1994 and concludes in January 2013 and yields 18 US and 89 European green funds. The results obtained for green fund managers are compared with those achieved for conventional and other forms of SR mutual fund managers. We control for the mutual fund investment objective (distinguishing between domestic and global portfolios) and for the effect of crisis market periods. For US SR funds, partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance in crisis periods but underperform relative to the market in normal periods. Furthermore, the findings indicate that green funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. For European SR funds partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance irrespective of market conditions. Similar to the US findings, green Europe SR funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. Managerial abilities are not evident in the findings though unsuccessful timing of the market is revealed for both Europe and US global green funds. When analyzing managerial abilities in crisis and non-crisis market periods, US green fund managers achieve better results in crisis market periods and the opposite occurs for green fund managers in European market. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Muñoz & Maria Vargas & Isabel Marco, 2014. "Environmental Mutual Funds: Financial Performance and Managerial Abilities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(4), pages 551-569, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:124:y:2014:i:4:p:551-569
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1893-x
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental mutual funds; Financial performance; Green investment; Market-timing; Stock-picking; Style-timing; G11; G23; Q56;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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