IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v59y2024ics154461232301187x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incorporating green assets in equity portfolios

Author

Listed:
  • Lalwani, Vaibhav

Abstract

We test whether the inclusion of green asset ETFs in portfolios yields better outcomes for investors. We use a mean-variance optimization framework to construct optimal portfolios with and without green assets and compare their performance over different time horizons and market conditions. Our results show that the portfolios that combine green assets with other broader market indices generate higher returns and Sharpe ratios compared to benchmark portfolios. These results survive the incorporation of transaction costs and removal of the COVID-19 period from the sample. Further, we find that the probability of outperforming the benchmark is much higher for long-horizon investors in green asset portfolios.

Suggested Citation

  • Lalwani, Vaibhav, 2024. "Incorporating green assets in equity portfolios," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:59:y:2024:i:c:s154461232301187x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2023.104815
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461232301187X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2023.104815?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henke, Hans-Martin, 2016. "The effect of social screening on bond mutual fund performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 69-84.
    2. Bana Abuzayed & Nedal Al-Fayoumi, 2023. "Diversification and hedging strategies of green bonds in financial asset portfolios during the COVID-19 pandemic," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(36), pages 4228-4238, August.
    3. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    4. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Francisco J. Nogales & Raman Uppal, 2009. "A Generalized Approach to Portfolio Optimization: Improving Performance by Constraining Portfolio Norms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 798-812, May.
    5. Naqvi, Bushra & Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Hasnaoui, Amir & Shao, Xuefeng, 2022. "Going beyond sustainability: The diversification benefits of green energy financial products," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    6. Pástor, Ľuboš & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2022. "Dissecting green returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 403-424.
    7. Han, Yingwei & Li, Jie, 2023. "The impact of global economic policy uncertainty on portfolio optimization: A Black–Litterman approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Bernardi, Mauro & Catania, Leopoldo, 2018. "Portfolio optimisation under flexible dynamic dependence modelling," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-18.
    9. Gbenga Ibikunle & Tom Steffen, 2017. "European Green Mutual Fund Performance: A Comparative Analysis with their Conventional and Black Peers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 337-355, October.
    10. Akhtaruzzaman, Md & Banerjee, Ameet Kumar & Boubaker, Sabri & Moussa, Faten, 2023. "Does green improve portfolio optimisation?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    11. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Syed Aun R. Rizvi & Ali Sakti, 2022. "Did green debt instruments aid diversification during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Muhammad Abubakr Naeem & Sitara Karim & Aviral Kumar Tiwari, 2023. "Risk Connectedness Between Green and Conventional Assets with Portfolio Implications," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 62(2), pages 609-637, August.
    13. Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Karim, Sitara, 2021. "Tail dependence between bitcoin and green financial assets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 208(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. Mohammed, Kamel Si & Serret, Vanessa & Urom, Christian, 2024. "The effect of green bonds on climate risk amid economic and environmental policy uncertainties," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).
    2. Su, Xianfang & Zhao, Yachao, 2025. "Risk spillovers between Chinese new energy futures and carbon-intensive assets: Asymmetric effect, time–frequency dynamics, and portfolio strategies," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(PA).
    3. Kaur Rajbeer & Kumar Parveen & Radulescu Magdalena & Mohd Sharif & Dascalu Nicoleta, 2025. "Spillover Nexus among Green Cryptocurrency, Sectoral Renewable Energy Equity Stock and Agricultural Commodity: Implications for Portfolio Diversification," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-26.
    4. Nini Johana Marín-Rodríguez & Juan David González-Ruíz & Sergio Botero, 2025. "Towards New Strategies for Investing: Insights on Sustainable Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)," World, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-27, January.

    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. Ahad, Muhammad & Imran, Zulfiqar Ali & Shahzad, Khurram, 2024. "Safe haven between European ESG and energy sector under Russian-Ukraine war: Role of sustainable investments for portfolio diversification," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    2. Díaz, Antonio & Escribano, Ana & Esparcia, Carlos, 2024. "Sustainable risk preferences on asset allocation: a higher order optimal portfolio study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    3. Díaz, Antonio & Esparcia, Carlos & Alonso, Daniel & Alonso, Maria-Teresa, 2024. "Portfolio management of ESG-labeled energy companies based on PTV and ESG factors," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    4. Pham, Son D. & Nguyen, Thao T.T. & Do, Hung X., 2024. "Impact of climate policy uncertainty on return spillover among green assets and portfolio implications," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. Esparcia, Carlos & Diaz, Antonio & Alonso, Daniel, 2023. "How important is green awareness in energy investment decisions? An environmentally-based rebalancing portfolio study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    6. Silva, Florinda & Ferreira, André & Cortez, Maria Céu, 2024. "The performance of green bond portfolios under climate uncertainty: A comparative analysis with conventional and black bond portfolios," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PA).
    7. Candelon, B. & Hurlin, C. & Tokpavi, S., 2012. "Sampling error and double shrinkage estimation of minimum variance portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 511-527.
    8. Sebastiano Michele Zema & Giorgio Fagiolo & Tiziano Squartini & Diego Garlaschelli, 2025. "Mesoscopic structure of the stock market and portfolio optimization," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 20(2), pages 307-333, April.
    9. Fan, Jianqing & Liao, Yuan & Shi, Xiaofeng, 2015. "Risks of large portfolios," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(2), pages 367-387.
    10. Jacobs, Heiko & Müller, Sebastian & Weber, Martin, 2014. "How should individual investors diversify? An empirical evaluation of alternative asset allocation policies," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 62-85.
    11. Olivier Ledoit & Michael Wolf, 2022. "Markowitz portfolios under transaction costs," ECON - Working Papers 420, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Sep 2024.
    12. Emre Arat & Britta Hachenberg & Florian Kiesel & Dirk Schiereck, 2023. "Greenium, credit rating, and the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(7), pages 547-557, December.
    13. Ledoit, Olivier & Wolf, Michael, 2025. "Markowitz portfolios under transaction costs," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    14. Ammann, Manuel & Coqueret, Guillaume & Schade, Jan-Philip, 2016. "Characteristics-based portfolio choice with leverage constraints," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 23-37.
    15. Karstanje, Dennis & Sojli, Elvira & Tham, Wing Wah & van der Wel, Michel, 2013. "Economic valuation of liquidity timing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5073-5087.
    16. Lassance, Nathan & Vrins, Frédéric, 2021. "Portfolio selection with parsimonious higher comoments estimation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    17. László PáL, 2022. "Asset Allocation Strategies Using Covariance Matrix Estimators," Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 10(1), pages 133-144, September.
    18. Kamesh Korangi & Christophe Mues & Cristi'an Bravo, 2024. "Large-scale Time-Varying Portfolio Optimisation using Graph Attention Networks," Papers 2407.15532, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.
    19. Maillet, Bertrand & Tokpavi, Sessi & Vaucher, Benoit, 2015. "Global minimum variance portfolio optimisation under some model risk: A robust regression-based approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(1), pages 289-299.
    20. Khaki, Audil & Prasad, Mason & Al-Mohamad, Somar & Bakry, Walid & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2023. "Re-evaluating portfolio diversification and design using cryptocurrencies: Are decentralized cryptocurrencies enough?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation

    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:59:y:2024:i:c:s154461232301187x. 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.