IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v97y2025ics1057521924007087.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can we enhance investment with ESG?

Author

Listed:
  • Rudkin, Wanling
  • Cai, Charlie X.
  • Zhou, You

Abstract

Given evidence of low abnormal returns to ESG stock investment, growth in ESG focused stock investment suggests a wider utility from holding higher ESG performance stocks. We add detail and granularity through a double-sorted portfolio approach across two ESG measures and 24 anomalies. Traditional anomaly factor sort strategies may be enhanced by ESG information to produce an annualised ESG tilted alpha of more than 6% and provide an up to 7% alpha gain over the unconditional factor sort strategy. Investors using our strategies may increase ESG exposure and gain abnormal return with no alpha cost relative to traditional factor investing.

Suggested Citation

  • Rudkin, Wanling & Cai, Charlie X. & Zhou, You, 2025. "Can we enhance investment with ESG?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s1057521924007087
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521924007087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103776?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1901-1930 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Giglio, Stefano & Maggiori, Matteo & Stroebel, Johannes & Tan, Zhenhao & Utkus, Stephen & Xu, Xiao, 2025. "Four facts about ESG beliefs and investor portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    3. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2010. "Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(305), pages 1-19, January.
    4. Richardson, Scott A. & Sloan, Richard G. & Soliman, Mark T. & Tuna, Irem, 2005. "Accrual reliability, earnings persistence and stock prices," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 437-485, September.
    5. Cerqueti, Roy & Ciciretti, Rocco & Dalò, Ambrogio & Nicolosi, Marco, 2021. "ESG investing: A chance to reduce systemic risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    6. Bradford Cornell, 2021. "ESG preferences, risk and return," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 27(1), pages 12-19, January.
    7. Pástor, Ľuboš & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2021. "Sustainable investing in equilibrium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 550-571.
    8. Karl V. Lins & Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2019. "Social Capital, Trust, and Corporate Performance: How CSR Helped Companies During the Financial Crisis (and Why It Can Keep Helping Them)," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 31(2), pages 59-71, June.
    9. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    10. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & Michael J. Schill, 2008. "Asset Growth and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1609-1651, August.
    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. Eugene F Fama & Kenneth R French & Andrew KarolyiEditor, 2020. "Comparing Cross-Section and Time-Series Factor Models," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 33(5), pages 1891-1926.
    13. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Mark Grinblatt, 1999. "Do Industries Explain Momentum?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1249-1290, August.
    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. Harris, Lawrence E & Gurel, Eitan, 1986. "Price and Volume Effects Associated with Changes in the S&P 500 List: New Evidence for the Existence of Price Pressures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(4), pages 815-829, September.
    16. Pástor, Ľuboš & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2022. "Dissecting green returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 403-424.
    17. 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.
    18. Muhammad Farid Ahmed & Yang Gao & Stephen Satchell, 2021. "Modeling demand for ESG," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(16), pages 1669-1683, November.
    19. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2015. "Editor's Choice Digesting Anomalies: An Investment Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 650-705.
    20. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    21. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    22. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    23. Teti, Emanuele & Dallocchio, Maurizio & L'Erario, Giulio, 2023. "The impact of ESG tilting on the performance of stock portfolios in times of crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    24. Florian Berg & Julian F Kölbel & Roberto Rigobon, 2022. "Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings [Corporate social responsibility and firm risk: theory and empirical evidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1315-1344.
    25. 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.
    26. 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.
    27. Jeffrey Pontiff & Artemiza Woodgate, 2008. "Share Issuance and Cross‐sectional Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 921-945, April.
    28. Pedersen, Lasse Heje & Fitzgibbons, Shaun & Pomorski, Lukasz, 2021. "Responsible investing: The ESG-efficient frontier," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 572-597.
    29. Gillan, Stuart L. & Koch, Andrew & Starks, Laura T., 2021. "Firms and social responsibility: A review of ESG and CSR research in corporate finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    30. Shackleton, Mark & Yan, Jiali & Yao, Yaqiong, 2022. "What drives a firm's ES performance? Evidence from stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    31. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    32. Dyck, Alexander & Lins, Karl V. & Roth, Lukas & Wagner, Hannes F., 2019. "Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 693-714.
    33. 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.
    34. Shleifer, Andrei, 1986. "Do Demand Curves for Stocks Slope Down?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 579-590, July.
    35. repec:osf:socarx:dcb93_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Giovanni Cardillo & Ennio Bendinelli & Giuseppe Torluccio, 2023. "COVID‐19, ESG investing, and the resilience of more sustainable stocks: Evidence from European firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 602-623, January.
    37. 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.
    38. 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.
    39. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    40. 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.
    41. Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Anshuman, V. Ravi, 2001. "Trading activity and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 3-32, January.
    42. 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.
    43. Ioannis Oikonomou & Chris Brooks & Stephen Pavelin, 2012. "The Impact of Corporate Social Performance on Financial Risk and Utility: A Longitudinal Analysis," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 483-515, June.
    44. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    45. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    46. Ann Susan Thomas & Ambili Jayachandran & Ajithakumari Vijayappan Nair Biju, 2024. "Strategic mapping of the environmental social governance landscape in finance – A bibliometric exploration through concepts and themes," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 4428-4453, September.
    47. Eugene F Fama & Kenneth R French, 2020. "Comparing Cross-Section and Time-Series Factor Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 1891-1926.
    48. Avramov, Doron & Cheng, Si & Lioui, Abraham & Tarelli, Andrea, 2022. "Sustainable investing with ESG rating uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 642-664.
    49. Jeremiah Green & John R. M. Hand & X. Frank Zhang, 2017. "The Characteristics that Provide Independent Information about Average U.S. Monthly Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(12), pages 4389-4436.
    50. Lars Kaiser, 2020. "ESG integration: value, growth and momentum," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(1), pages 32-51, February.
    51. 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).
    52. Meir Statman & Denys Glushkov, 2009. "The Wages of Social Responsibility," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 65(4), pages 33-46, July.
    53. Christopher W. Anderson & Luis Garcia‐Feijóo, 2006. "Empirical Evidence on Capital Investment, Growth Options, and Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 171-194, February.
    54. Steven D. Baker & Burton Hollifield & Emilio Osambela, 2022. "Asset Prices and Portfolios with Externalities [Pricedetermination in the EU ETS market: theory and econometric analysis with market fundamentals]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1433-1468.
    55. Robert Novy-Marx & Mihail Velikov, 2016. "A Taxonomy of Anomalies and Their Trading Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 104-147.
    56. Gunther Capelle-Blancard & Adrien Desroziers & Olivier David Zerbib, 2021. "Socially Responsible Investing Strategies under Pressure: Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis," Post-Print hal-03526650, HAL.
    57. 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.
    58. Chen, Hsiu-Lang & De Bondt, Werner, 2004. "Style momentum within the S&P-500 index," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 483-507, September.
    59. Andrew Y. Chen & Mihail Velikov, 2020. "Zeroing in on the Expected Returns of Anomalies," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-039, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    60. Liu, Weimin, 2006. "A liquidity-augmented capital asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 631-671, December.
    61. 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.
    62. 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.
    63. Lioui, Abraham & Tarelli, Andrea, 2022. "Chasing the ESG factor," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    64. Datar, Vinay T. & Y. Naik, Narayan & Radcliffe, Robert, 1998. "Liquidity and stock returns: An alternative test," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 203-219, August.
    65. Sahin, Özge & Bax, Karoline & Paterlini, Sandra & Czado, Claudia, 2023. "The pitfalls of (non-definitive) Environmental, Social, and Governance scoring methodology," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Hou, Kewei & Xue, Chen & Zhang, Lu, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," Working Paper Series 2017-10, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    2. Tran, Vu Le, 2023. "Sentiment and covariance characteristics," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. De Nard, Gianluca & Zhao, Zhao, 2022. "A large-dimensional test for cross-sectional anomalies:Efficient sorting revisited," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 654-676.
    4. Bui, Dien Giau & Kong, De-Rong & Lin, Chih-Yung & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2023. "Momentum in machine learning: Evidence from the Taiwan stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    5. Jiaju Miao & Pawel Polak, 2023. "Online Ensemble of Models for Optimal Predictive Performance with Applications to Sector Rotation Strategy," Papers 2304.09947, arXiv.org.
    6. Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin Sterling, 2021. "Downside risk and the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Andrew Y. Chen & Tom Zimmermann, 2022. "Open Source Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 11(2), pages 207-264, May.
    8. Weichuan Deng & Pawel Polak & Abolfazl Safikhani & Ronakdilip Shah, 2023. "A Unified Framework for Fast Large-Scale Portfolio Optimization," Papers 2303.12751, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    9. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    10. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, March.
    11. Luo, Di, 2022. "ESG, liquidity, and stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Hediger, Simon & Michel, Loris & Näf, Jeffrey, 2022. "On the use of random forest for two-sample testing," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    13. 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.
    14. Joachim Freyberger & Andreas Neuhierl & Michael Weber, 2020. "Dissecting Characteristics Nonparametrically," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 2326-2377.
    15. Hoang, Khoa & Cannavan, Damien & Gaunt, Clive & Huang, Ronghong, 2019. "Is that factor just lucky? Australian evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    16. Liu, Xufeng & Wan, Die, 2023. "Retail investor trading and ESG pricing in China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Stereńczak, Szymon & Zaremba, Adam & Umar, Zaghum, 2020. "Is there an illiquidity premium in frontier markets?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    18. Kristoffer Pons Bertelsen, 2022. "The Prior Adaptive Group Lasso and the Factor Zoo," CREATES Research Papers 2022-05, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    19. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2021. "Liquidity and the cross-section of international stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    20. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ESG; Portfolio choice; Tilted portfolios; Sustainable investing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

    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:eee:finana:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s1057521924007087. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620166 .

    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.