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Global Standards and Ethical Stock Indexes: the case of the Dow Jones Sustainability Stoxx Index

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  • Costanza Consolandi

    ()

  • Ameeta Jaiswal-Dale

    ()

  • Elisa Poggiani

    ()

  • Alessandro Vercelli

    ()

Abstract

The increased scrutiny of investors regarding the non-financial aspects of corporate performance have placed portfolio managers in the position of having to weigh the benefits of “holding the market” against the cost of having positions in companies that are subsequently found to have questionable business practices. The availability of stock indexes based on sustainability screening makes increasingly viable for institutional investors the transition to a portfolio based on a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) benchmark at relatively low cost. The increasing share of socially responsible investments may play a role in providing incentives towards a continuous upgrading of sustainability standards to the extent that their performance is not systematically inferior to that of the other funds. This paper examines whether these incentives have been so far detectable with particular reference to the Dow Jones Sustainability Stoxx Index (DJSSI) that focuses on the European corporations with the highest CSR scores among those included in the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, we analyse the performance of the DJSSI over the period 2001-2006 compared to that of the Surrogate Complementary Index (SCI), a new benchmark that includes only the components of the DJ Stoxx 600 that do not belong to the ethical index in order to evaluate more correctly the size of possible divergent performances.Second, we perform an event study on the same data set to analyse whether the stock market evaluation reacts to the inclusion (deletion) in the DJSSI. In both cases the results suggest that the evaluation of the CSR performance of a firm is a significant criterion for asset allocation activities.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development (DEPFID), University of Siena in its series Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development (DEPFID) University of Siena with number 0208.

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Date of creation: Jan 2008
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Handle: RePEc:usi:depfid:0208

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Keywords: Dow Jones Sustainability Stock Index; Ethical stock indexes; SRI (Socially Responsible Investing); SRI funds.;

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  1. Derwall, Jeroen & Guenster, Nadja & Bauer, Rob & Koedijk, Kees, 2005. "The eco-efficiency premium puzzle," Open Access publications from Maastricht University urn:nbn:nl:ui:27-19331, Maastricht University.
    • Derwall, J.M.M. & Günster, N.K. & Bauer, R. & Koedijk, C.G., 2004. "The Eco-Efficiency Premium Puzzle," Research Paper ERS-2004-043-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
  2. Michael C. Jensen, 2001. "Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, And The Corporate Objective Function," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(3), pages 8-21.
  3. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1979. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk," Levine's Working Paper Archive 7656, David K. Levine.
  4. 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.
  5. Bauer, Rob & Koedijk, Kees & Otten, Róger, 2005. "International evidence on ethical mutual fund performance and investment style," Open Access publications from Maastricht University urn:nbn:nl:ui:27-19330, Maastricht University.
  6. 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.
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Cited by:
  1. W. K. Adrian Cheung & Eduardo Roca, 2010. "Do Pacific Basin Investors Value Corporate Sustainability?," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:201016, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
  2. Miwa Nakai & Keiko Yamaguchi & Kenji Takeuchi, 2012. "Sustainability membership and stock price: an empirical study using the Morningstar-SRI Index," Discussion Papers 1204, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
  3. Consolandi, Costanza & Innocenti, Alessandro & Vercelli, Alessandro, 2009. "CSR, rationality and the ethical preferences of investors in a laboratory experiment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 242-252, December.
  4. Adrian Wai Kong Cheung, 2011. "Do Stock Investors Value Corporate Sustainability? Evidence from an Event Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 99(2), pages 145-165, March.

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