IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/112339.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exploring the hedge, diversifier and safe haven properties of ESG investments: A cross-quantilogram analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Pedini, Luca
  • Severini, Sabrina

Abstract

This article proposes an empirical investigation, based on a cross-quantilogram analysis, to assess the hedge, diversifier and safe haven properties of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) assets in comparison to conventional investment practices (equity index, gold, commodities and cryptocurrencies). Our evidence shows that ESG assets have a weak safe haven properties but still represent an outstanding diversification and hedge asset, depending on the asset class taken as reference. Our results provide important implications for risk management suggesting that investors have started considering sustainable investing as a new measure of value maximization and risk reduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedini, Luca & Severini, Sabrina, 2022. "Exploring the hedge, diversifier and safe haven properties of ESG investments: A cross-quantilogram analysis," MPRA Paper 112339, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:112339
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/112339/1/MPRA_paper_112339.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    2. Heinkel, Robert & Kraus, Alan & Zechner, Josef, 2001. "The Effect of Green Investment on Corporate Behavior," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 431-449, December.
    3. Baur, Dirk G. & McDermott, Thomas K., 2010. "Is gold a safe haven? International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1886-1898, August.
    4. Bekiros, Stelios & Boubaker, Sabri & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2017. "Black swan events and safe havens: The role of gold in globally integrated emerging markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB), pages 317-334.
    5. Renneboog, Luc & Ter Horst, Jenke & Zhang, Chendi, 2011. "Is ethical money financially smart? Nonfinancial attributes and money flows of socially responsible investment funds," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 562-588, October.
    6. Anders Stensås & Magnus Frostholm Nygaard & Khine Kyaw & Sirimon Treepongkaruna, 2019. "Can Bitcoin be a diversifier, hedge or safe haven tool?," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 1593072-159, January.
    7. Dirk G. Baur & Brian M. Lucey, 2010. "Is Gold a Hedge or a Safe Haven? An Analysis of Stocks, Bonds and Gold," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 217-229, May.
    8. Reboredo, Juan C., 2018. "Green bond and financial markets: Co-movement, diversification and price spillover effects," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 38-50.
    9. Umar, Zaghum & Gubareva, Mariya & Teplova, Tamara, 2021. "The impact of Covid-19 on commodity markets volatility: Analyzing time-frequency relations between commodity prices and coronavirus panic levels," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan, 2007. "Corporate social responsibility: Doing well by doing good," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 247-254.
    11. Rui Albuquerque & Yrjo Koskinen & Shuai Yang & Chendi Zhang, 2020. "Resiliency of Environmental and Social Stocks: An Analysis of the Exogenous COVID-19 Market Crash," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(3), pages 593-621.
    12. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Does Bitcoin hedge global uncertainty? Evidence from wavelet-based quantile-in-quantile regressions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 87-95.
    13. Grisse, Christian & Nitschka, Thomas, 2015. "On financial risk and the safe haven characteristics of Swiss franc exchange rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 153-164.
    14. Rui Albuquerque & Yrjö Koskinen & Chendi Zhang, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Risk: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4451-4469, October.
    15. Díaz, Violeta & Ibrushi, Denada & Zhao, Jialin, 2021. "Reconsidering systematic factors during the Covid-19 pandemic – The rising importance of ESG," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    16. Klein, Tony, 2017. "Dynamic correlation of precious metals and flight-to-quality in developed markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 283-290.
    17. Linh Pham, 2016. "Is it risky to go green? A volatility analysis of the green bond market," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(4), pages 263-291, October.
    18. Singh, Amanjot, 2020. "COVID-19 and safer investment bets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    19. Hachenberg, B. & Schiereck, D., 2018. "Are green bonds priced differently from conventional bonds?," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 109709, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    20. Dwita Mariana, Christy & Ekaputra, Irwan Adi & Husodo, Zaäfri Ananto, 2021. "Are Bitcoin and Ethereum safe-havens for stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    21. Broadstock, David C. & Chan, Kalok & Cheng, Louis T.W. & Wang, Xiaowei, 2021. "The role of ESG performance during times of financial crisis: Evidence from COVID-19 in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    22. Karl V. Lins & Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2017. "Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1785-1824, August.
    23. Jurgen A. Doornik & Henrik Hansen, 2008. "An Omnibus Test for Univariate and Multivariate Normality," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(s1), pages 927-939, December.
    24. Beckmann, Joscha & Berger, Theo & Czudaj, Robert, 2015. "Does gold act as a hedge or a safe haven for stocks? A smooth transition approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 16-24.
    25. Han, Heejoon & Linton, Oliver & Oka, Tatsushi & Whang, Yoon-Jae, 2016. "The cross-quantilogram: Measuring quantile dependence and testing directional predictability between time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 193(1), pages 251-270.
    26. Rui Albuquerque & Yrjo Koskinen & Shuai Yang & Chendi Zhang, 0. "Resiliency of Environmental and Social Stocks: An Analysis of the Exogenous COVID-19 Market Crash," Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 593-621.
    27. 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.
    28. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    29. Brian M. Lucey & Sile Li, 2015. "What precious metals act as safe havens, and when? Some US evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 35-45, January.
    30. Ratner, Mitchell & Chiu, Chih-Chieh (Jason), 2013. "Hedging stock sector risk with credit default swaps," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 18-25.
    31. Salisu, Afees A. & Vo, Xuan Vinh & Lawal, Adedoyin, 2021. "Hedging oil price risk with gold during COVID-19 pandemic," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    32. Maria Jua Bachelet & Leonardo Becchetti & Stefano Manfredonia, 2019. "The Green Bonds Premium Puzzle: The Role of Issuer Characteristics and Third-Party Verification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-22, February.
    33. Disli, Mustafa & Nagayev, Ruslan & Salim, Kinan & Rizkiah, Siti K. & Aysan, Ahmet F., 2021. "In search of safe haven assets during COVID-19 pandemic: An empirical analysis of different investor types," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    34. Nofsinger, John & Varma, Abhishek, 2014. "Socially responsible funds and market crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 180-193.
    35. Caroline Flammer, 2015. "Does product market competition foster corporate social responsibility? Evidence from trade liberalization," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1469-1485, October.
    36. Uddin, Gazi Salah & Rahman, Md Lutfur & Hedström, Axel & Ahmed, Ali, 2019. "Cross-quantilogram-based correlation and dependence between renewable energy stock and other asset classes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 743-759.
    37. Tim Verheyden & Robert G. Eccles & Andreas Feiner, 2016. "ESG for All? The Impact of ESG Screening on Return, Risk, and Diversification," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 28(2), pages 47-55, June.
    38. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong & Zhao, Yuqian, 2020. "Searching for safe-haven assets during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    39. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Bouri, Elie & Roubaud, David & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Lucey, Brian, 2019. "Is Bitcoin a better safe-haven investment than gold and commodities?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 322-330.
    40. Britta Hachenberg & Dirk Schiereck, 2018. "Are green bonds priced differently from conventional bonds?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(6), pages 371-383, October.
    41. Baur, Dirk G. & Hong, KiHoon & Lee, Adrian D., 2018. "Bitcoin: Medium of exchange or speculative assets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-189.
    42. Corbet, Shaen & Hou, Yang (Greg) & Hu, Yang & Larkin, Charles & Oxley, Les, 2020. "Any port in a storm: Cryptocurrency safe-havens during the COVID-19 pandemic," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    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. Mohammad Alqudah & Luis Ferruz & Emilio Martín & Hanan Qudah & Firas Hamdan, 2023. "The Sustainability of Investing in Cryptocurrencies: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-25, July.
    2. Lei, Heng & Xue, Minggao & Liu, Huiling & Ye, Jing, 2023. "Precious metal as a safe haven for global ESG stocks: Portfolio implications for socially responsible investing," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    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. Yousaf, Imran & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir & Demirer, Riza, 2022. "Green investments: A luxury good or a financial necessity?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    2. N.S. Al-Nassar & Sabri Boubaker & A. Chaibi & B. Makram, 2023. "In Search of Hedges and Safe Havens during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Gold versus Bitcoin, Oil, and Oil Uncertainty," Post-Print hal-04435437, HAL.
    3. Chemkha, Rahma & BenSaïda, Ahmed & Ghorbel, Ahmed & Tayachi, Tahar, 2021. "Hedge and safe haven properties during COVID-19: Evidence from Bitcoin and gold," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 71-85.
    4. Mokni, Khaled & Youssef, Manel & Ajmi, Ahdi Noomen, 2022. "COVID-19 pandemic and economic policy uncertainty: The first test on the hedging and safe haven properties of cryptocurrencies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    5. Al-Nassar, Nassar S. & Boubaker, Sabri & Chaibi, Anis & Makram, Beljid, 2023. "In search of hedges and safe havens during the COVID─19 pandemic: Gold versus Bitcoin, oil, and oil uncertainty," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 318-332.
    6. Enilov, Martin & Mensi, Walid & Stankov, Petar, 2023. "Does safe haven exist? Tail risks of commodity markets during COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    7. Le, TN-Lan & Abakah, Emmanuel Joel Aikins & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar, 2021. "Time and frequency domain connectedness and spill-over among fintech, green bonds and cryptocurrencies in the age of the fourth industrial revolution," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    8. Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Hassan, M. Kabir & Rashid, Md. Mamunur & Alhenawi, Yasser, 2021. "Are safe haven assets really safe during the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    9. Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Naqvi, Bushra & Mirza, Nawazish & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Safe haven properties of green, Islamic, and crypto assets and investor's proclivity towards treasury and gold," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    10. Munir Khamis & Dalal Aassouli, 2023. "The Eligibility of Green Bonds as Safe Haven Assets: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-27, April.
    11. Echaust, Krzysztof & Just, Małgorzata, 2022. "Is gold still a safe haven for stock markets? New insights through the tail thickness of portfolio return distributions," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    12. Kamal, Javed Bin & Wohar, Mark & Kamal, Khaled Bin, 2022. "Do gold, oil, equities, and currencies hedge economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risks during covid crisis?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    13. Arif, Muhammad & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Farid, Saqib & Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2022. "Diversifier or more? Hedge and safe haven properties of green bonds during COVID-19," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    14. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong & Zhao, Yuqian, 2020. "Searching for safe-haven assets during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    15. Lei, Heng & Xue, Minggao & Liu, Huiling & Ye, Jing, 2023. "Precious metal as a safe haven for global ESG stocks: Portfolio implications for socially responsible investing," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Imran Yousaf & Vasilios Plakandaras & Elie Bouri & Rangan Gupta, 2022. "Hedge and Safe Haven Properties of Gold, US Treasury, Bitcoin, and Dollar/CHF against the FAANA Companies and S&P 500," Working Papers 202227, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    17. Cheema, Muhammad A. & Faff, Robert & Szulczyk, Kenneth R., 2022. "The 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic: How safe are the safe haven assets?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. Yousaf, Imran & Plakandaras, Vasilios & Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan, 2023. "Hedge and safe-haven properties of FAANA against gold, US Treasury, bitcoin, and US Dollar/CHF during the pandemic period," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    19. Wang, Gang-Jin & Ma, Xin-yu & Wu, Hao-yu, 2020. "Are stablecoins truly diversifiers, hedges, or safe havens against traditional cryptocurrencies as their name suggests?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    20. Wen, Fenghua & Tong, Xi & Ren, Xiaohang, 2022. "Gold or Bitcoin, which is the safe haven during the COVID-19 pandemic?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cross-quantilogram; ESG investment; safe haven; portfolio allocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:112339. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.