IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/revfec/v23y2014i4p208-216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Socially responsible investing and stock performance: New empirical evidence for the US and European stock markets

Author

Listed:
  • Janick Christian Mollet
  • Andreas Ziegler

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the theoretically ambivalent relationship between socially responsible investing (SRI) and stock performance. It contributes to the existing literature by considering both the US and the entire European stock markets and by using consistent world‐wide corporate sustainability performance data. Our portfolio analysis from 1998 to 2009 is based on the common four‐factor model according to Carhart (1997), which comprises market return, size, value, and momentum factors. We show for the US and the European stock markets that SRI is associated with large‐sized firms. The insignificant abnormal stock returns for SRI in both regions are the main result of our paper. Therefore, our study supports the view that SRI stocks are correctly priced by market participants, although we cannot rule out that a corresponding mispricing has existed before the beginning of our observation period in 1998.

Suggested Citation

  • Janick Christian Mollet & Andreas Ziegler, 2014. "Socially responsible investing and stock performance: New empirical evidence for the US and European stock markets," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(4), pages 208-216, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:revfec:v:23:y:2014:i:4:p:208-216
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rfe.2014.08.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rfe.2014.08.003
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rfe.2014.08.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Derwall, Jeroen & Koedijk, Kees & Ter Horst, Jenke, 2011. "A tale of values-driven and profit-seeking social investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 2137-2147, August.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/3187 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Marie-Aude Laguna & Gunther Capelle-Blancard, 2010. "How does the stock market respond to petrochemical disasters?," Post-Print halshs-00696984, HAL.
    4. William F. Sharpe, 1963. "A Simplified Model for Portfolio Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(2), pages 277-293, January.
    5. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cohen, Alma & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2013. "Learning and the disappearing association between governance and returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 323-348.
    6. Andreas Ziegler, 2012. "Is it Beneficial to be Included in a Sustainability Stock Index? A Panel Data Study for European Firms," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 52(3), pages 301-325, July.
    7. Ziegler, Andreas & Schröder, Michael, 2010. "What determines the inclusion in a sustainability stock index?: A panel data analysis for european firms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 848-856, February.
    8. Gunther Capelle-Blancard & Stéphanie Monjon, 2011. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Funds: Does the Screening Process Matter?," Working Papers 2011-12, CEPII research center.
    9. Fisher-Vanden, Karen & Thorburn, Karin S., 2011. "Voluntary corporate environmental initiatives and shareholder wealth," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 430-445.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7347 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Michael Schröder, 2007. "Is there a Difference? The Performance Characteristics of SRI Equity Indices," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1‐2), pages 331-348, January.
    12. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    13. Teoh, Siew Hong & Welch, Ivo & Wazzan, C Paul, 1999. "The Effect of Socially Activist Investment Policies on the Financial Markets: Evidence from the South African Boycott," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(1), pages 35-89, January.
    14. Edmans, Alex, 2011. "Does the stock market fully value intangibles? Employee satisfaction and equity prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 621-640, September.
    15. Deng, Xin & Kang, Jun-koo & Low, Buen Sin, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder value maximization: Evidence from mergers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 87-109.
    16. Rob Bauer & Jeroen Derwall & Rogér Otten, 2007. "The Ethical Mutual Fund Performance Debate: New Evidence from Canada," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 111-124, January.
    17. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2012. "Size, value, and momentum in international stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 457-472.
    18. Banz, Rolf W., 1981. "The relationship between return and market value of common stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-18, March.
    19. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    20. Renneboog, Luc & Ter Horst, Jenke & Zhang, Chendi, 2008. "Socially responsible investments: Institutional aspects, performance, and investor behavior," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1723-1742, September.
    21. Kempf, Alexander & Osthoff, Peer, 2007. "The effect of socially responsible investing on portfolio performance," CFR Working Papers 06-10, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    22. Larry D. Wall, 1995. "Some lessons from basic finance for effective socially responsible investing," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 80(Jan), pages 1-12.
    23. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    24. Markus Kitzmueller & Jay Shimshack, 2012. "Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 51-84, March.
    25. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    26. Capelle-Blancard, Gunther & Laguna, Marie-Aude, 2010. "How does the stock market respond to chemical disasters?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 192-205, March.
    27. Oberndorfer, Ulrich & Schmidt, Peter & Wagner, Marcus & Ziegler, Andreas, 2013. "Does the stock market value the inclusion in a sustainability stock index? An event study analysis for German firms," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 497-509.
    28. Bauer, Rob & Koedijk, Kees & Otten, Roger, 2005. "International evidence on ethical mutual fund performance and investment style," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1751-1767, July.
    29. Gunther Capelle†Blancard & Stéphanie Monjon, 2014. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Funds: Does the Screening Process Matter?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(3), pages 494-520, June.
    30. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    31. Robert G. Eccles & Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim, 2014. "The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2835-2857, November.
    32. André F. Perold, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 3-24, Summer.
    33. Ziegler, Andreas & Busch, Timo & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2011. "Disclosed corporate responses to climate change and stock performance: An international empirical analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1283-1294.
    34. Alexander Kempf & Peer Osthoff, 2007. "The Effect of Socially Responsible Investing on Portfolio Performance," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(5), pages 908-922, November.
    35. Cremers, Martijn & Petajisto, Antti & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2013. "Should Benchmark Indices Have Alpha? Revisiting Performance Evaluation," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 1-48, July.
    36. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 25-46, Summer.
    37. Hong, Harrison & Kacperczyk, Marcin, 2009. "The price of sin: The effects of social norms on markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 15-36, July.
    38. Andreas Ziegler & Michael Schröder & Klaus Rennings, 2008. "The Effect of Environmental and Social Performance on the Stock Performance of European Corporations," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(4), pages 609-609, August.
    39. Andreas Schrimpf & Michael Schröder & Richard Stehle, 2007. "Cross‐sectional Tests of Conditional Asset Pricing Models: Evidence from the German Stock Market," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(5), pages 880-907, November.
    40. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    41. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, April.
    42. Borgers, Arian & Derwall, Jeroen & Koedijk, Kees & ter Horst, Jenke, 2013. "Stakeholder relations and stock returns: On errors in investors' expectations and learning," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 159-175.
    43. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    44. L'Her, Jean-Francois & Masmoudi, Tarek & Suret, Jean-Marc, 2004. "Evidence to support the four-factor pricing model from the Canadian stock market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 313-328, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Metin Borak & Hatice Dogukanli, 2023. "Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Portfolio Performance: Evidence From Turkey," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    2. Ved Dilip Beloskar & Arunima Haldar & S. V. D. Nageswara Rao, 2023. "Socially responsible investments: A retrospective review and future research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 4841-4860, November.
    3. Sylwia Lorenc & Tomasz Leśniak & Arkadiusz Kustra & Maria Sierpińska, 2023. "Evolution of Business Models of Mining and Energy Sector Companies according to Current Market Trends," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-21, July.
    4. Guillermo Badía & Fernando Gómez‐Bezares & Luis Ferruz, 2022. "Are investments in material corporate social responsibility issues a key driver of financial performance?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(3), pages 3987-4011, September.
    5. Anastasia O. Volodina & Marina B. Trachenko, 2023. "ESG Investment Profitability in Developed and Emerging Markets with Regard to the Time Horizon," Finansovyj žhurnal — Financial Journal, Financial Research Institute, Moscow 125375, Russia, issue 2, pages 59-73, April.
    6. Yanbing Wang & Michael S. Delgado & Jin Xu, 2023. "When and where does it pay to be green? – A look into socially responsible investing and the cost of equity capital," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-23, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mollet, Janick Christian & Ziegler, Andreas, 2014. "Socially responsible investing and stock performance: New empirical evidence for the US and European stock markets," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 208-216.
    2. Janick Christian Mollet & Andreas Ziegler, 2012. "Is Socially Responsible Investing Really Beneficial? New Empirical Evidence for the US and European Stock Markets," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201228, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    3. Oberndorfer, Ulrich & Schmidt, Peter & Wagner, Marcus & Ziegler, Andreas, 2013. "Does the stock market value the inclusion in a sustainability stock index? An event study analysis for German firms," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 497-509.
    4. Ziegler, Andreas & Busch, Timo & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2011. "Disclosed corporate responses to climate change and stock performance: An international empirical analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1283-1294.
    5. Urs von Arx & Andreas Ziegler, 2008. "The Effect of CSR on Stock Performance: New Evidence for the USA and Europe," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 08/85, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    6. Guillermo Badía & Maria C. Cortez & Luis Ferruz, 2020. "Socially responsible investing worldwide: Do markets value corporate social responsibility?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2751-2764, November.
    7. Urs von Arx & Andreas Ziegler, 2014. "The effect of corporate social responsibility on stock performance: new evidence for the USA and Europe," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(6), pages 977-991, June.
    8. Sebastian Lobe & Christian Walkshäusl, 2016. "Vice versus virtue investing around the world," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 303-344, March.
    9. El Ouadghiri, Imane & Guesmi, Khaled & Peillex, Jonathan & Ziegler, Andreas, 2021. "Public Attention to Environmental Issues and Stock Market Returns," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    10. Thomas Walker & Kerstin Lopatta & Thomas Kaspereit, 2014. "Corporate sustainability in asset pricing models and mutual funds performance measurement," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 28(4), pages 363-407, November.
    11. Krüger, Philipp, 2015. "Corporate goodness and shareholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 304-329.
    12. Becchetti, Leonardo & Ciciretti, Rocco & Dalò, Ambrogio, 2018. "Fishing the Corporate Social Responsibility risk factors," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 25-48.
    13. Andreas G. F. Hoepner & Lisa Schopohl, 2018. "On the Price of Morals in Markets: An Empirical Study of the Swedish AP-Funds and the Norwegian Government Pension Fund," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 665-692, September.
    14. Borgers, A.C.T., 2014. "Responsible investing : New insights into performance and tastes," Other publications TiSEM 587e777f-c242-4a44-968e-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Ciciretti, Rocco & Dalò, Ambrogio & Dam, Lammertjan, 2023. "The contributions of betas versus characteristics to the ESG premium," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 104-124.
    16. Guillermo Badía & Luis Ferruz & Maria Céu Cortez, 2021. "The performance of social responsible investing from retail investors' perspective: international evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 6074-6088, October.
    17. Nofsinger, John & Varma, Abhishek, 2014. "Socially responsible funds and market crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 180-193.
    18. Azmi, Wajahat & Mohamad, Shamsher & Shah, Mohamed Eskandar, 2020. "Ethical investments and financial performance: An international evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Luluk Widyawati, 2020. "A systematic literature review of socially responsible investment and environmental social governance metrics," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 619-637, February.
    20. Federica Ielasi & Monica Rossolini, 2019. "Responsible or Thematic? The True Nature of Sustainability-Themed Mutual Funds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-17, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:revfec:v:23:y:2014:i:4:p:208-216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1873-5924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.