IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v45y2022ics1544612321002397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The sustainability trap: Active fund managers between ESG investing and fund overpricing

Author

Listed:
  • Bofinger, Yannik
  • Heyden, Kim J.
  • Rock, Björn
  • Bannier, Christina E.

Abstract

This study examines the relation between a fund’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating and active fund investment skill. We find that higher ESG ratings are associated not only with higher overpricing in the fund. Rather, higher sustainability of the fund also leads to higher overpricing in the fund even relative to its benchmark. Pursuing higher fund sustainability hence leads to active fund overpricing which is typically interpreted as low investment skill.

Suggested Citation

  • Bofinger, Yannik & Heyden, Kim J. & Rock, Björn & Bannier, Christina E., 2022. "The sustainability trap: Active fund managers between ESG investing and fund overpricing," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:45:y:2022:i:c:s1544612321002397
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2021.102160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612321002397
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2021.102160?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. Kenneth R. French, 2008. "Presidential Address: The Cost of Active Investing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1537-1573, August.
    2. Becchetti, Leonardo & Ciciretti, Rocco & Giovannelli, Alessandro, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and earnings forecasting unbiasedness," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3654-3668.
    3. Samuel M. Hartzmark & Abigail B. Sussman, 2019. "Do Investors Value Sustainability? A Natural Experiment Examining Ranking and Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(6), pages 2789-2837, December.
    4. Arno Riedl & Paul Smeets, 2017. "Why Do Investors Hold Socially Responsible Mutual Funds?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(6), pages 2505-2550, December.
    5. Doukas, John A. & Kim, Chansog (Francis) & Pantzalis, Christos, 2010. "Arbitrage Risk and Stock Mispricing," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(4), pages 907-934, August.
    6. Lee-Seok Hwang & Woo-Jong Lee, 2013. "Stock Return Predictability of Residual-Income-Based Valuation: Risk or Mispricing?," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 49(2), pages 219-241, June.
    7. Ming Dong & David Hirshleifer & Scott Richardson & Siew Hong Teoh, 2006. "Does Investor Misvaluation Drive the Takeover Market?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 725-762, April.
    8. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    9. 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.
    10. Robin Greenwood & David Scharfstein, 2013. "The Growth of Finance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 3-28, Spring.
    11. Hertzel, Michael G. & Li, Zhi, 2010. "Behavioral and Rational Explanations of Stock Price Performance around SEOs: Evidence from a Decomposition of Market-to-Book Ratios," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(4), pages 935-958, August.
    12. Loughran, Tim & Ritter, Jay R, 1995. "The New Issues Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 23-51, March.
    13. Robert F. Stambaugh & Jianfeng Yu & Yu Yuan, 2015. "Arbitrage Asymmetry and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1903-1948, October.
    14. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    15. Doron Avramov & Si Cheng & Allaudeen Hameed, 2020. "Mutual Funds and Mispriced Stocks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2372-2395, June.
    16. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    17. 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.
    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. Berenike Wiener & Georg von Schnurbein, 2023. "Foundation Investment Funds for Grant-Making Foundations in Germany: Do They Facilitate Sustainable Investing?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    2. Wang, Ren & Bian, Yuxiang & Xiong, Xiong, 2024. "Impact of ESG preferences on investments and emissions in a DSGE framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    3. Du, Linda Y.L. & Sun, Jianfei, 2023. "Washing away their stigma? The ESG of “Sin” firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PB).
    4. Klinkowska, Olga & Zhao, Yuan, 2023. "Fund flows and performance: New evidence from retail and institutional SRI mutual funds," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(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. Bofinger, Yannik & Heyden, Kim J. & Rock, Björn, 2022. "Corporate social responsibility and market efficiency: Evidence from ESG and misvaluation measures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Andreou, Christoforos K. & Lambertides, Neophytos & Panayides, Photis M., 2021. "Distress risk anomaly and misvaluation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5).
    3. Cheema, Muhammad A. & Scrimgeour, Frank, 2019. "Oil prices and stock market anomalies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 578-587.
    4. Xiaomeng Lu & Robert F. Stambaugh & Yu Yuan, 2017. "Anomalies Abroad: Beyond Data Mining," NBER Working Papers 23809, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    6. Ma, Tianyi & Li, Baibing & Tee, Kai-Hong, 2022. "Mispricing chasing and hedge fund returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 34-49.
    7. Guo, Li & Li, Frank Weikai & John Wei, K.C., 2020. "Security analysts and capital market anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 204-230.
    8. Robert F. Stambaugh & Yu Yuan, 2017. "Mispricing Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 1270-1315.
    9. Doron Avramov & Si Cheng & Allaudeen Hameed, 2020. "Mutual Funds and Mispriced Stocks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2372-2395, June.
    10. Nguyen, Hung T. & Pham, Mia Hang, 2021. "Does investor attention matter for market anomalies?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    11. Tran, Vu Le, 2023. "Sentiment and covariance characteristics," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    12. Kim, Dongcheol & Lee, Inro & Na, Haejung, 2019. "Financial distress, short sale constraints, and mispricing," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 94-111.
    13. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2014. "The long of it: Odds that investor sentiment spuriously predicts anomaly returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(3), pages 613-619.
    14. Jacobs, Heiko, 2016. "Market maturity and mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 270-287.
    15. Akbas, Ferhat & Armstrong, Will J. & Sorescu, Sorin & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2015. "Smart money, dumb money, and capital market anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 355-382.
    16. Guidolin, Massimo & Ricci, Andrea, 2020. "Arbitrage risk and a sentiment as causes of persistent mispricing: The European evidence," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-11.
    17. George D. Cashman & David M. Harrison & Hainan Sheng, 2021. "Option Trading and REIT Returns," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 49(1), pages 332-389, March.
    18. de Oliveira Souza, Thiago, 2020. "Observable implications of the conditional CAPM," Discussion Papers on Economics 13/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    19. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Lin Sun, 2020. "Short- and Long-Horizon Behavioral Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 1673-1736.
    20. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ESG; Sustainability; Mutual funds; Mispricing; Active fund overpricing; Fund investment skill;
    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
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • 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

    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:finlet:v:45:y:2022:i:c:s1544612321002397. 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/frl .

    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.