IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0285027.html

For whom does it pay to be a moral capitalist? Sustainability of corporate financial performance of ESG investment

Author

Listed:
  • Mariya Gubareva
  • Zaghum Umar
  • Tatiana Sokolova
  • Valentina Antonyuk

Abstract

This paper analyzes the risk-return characteristics of socially responsible investing by employing a time-varying capital gain and Sharpe ratio analysis for various investment horizons. We employ the MSCI ESG (environmental, social and governance) leaders indices in ten markets encompassing Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, UK, USA, China, India, Russia, and South Africa. Our sample ranges from 2007–2020. We document that ESG investments have very desirable return and hedging attributes for investors in these markets, and especially so in the USA and emerging markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariya Gubareva & Zaghum Umar & Tatiana Sokolova & Valentina Antonyuk, 2023. "For whom does it pay to be a moral capitalist? Sustainability of corporate financial performance of ESG investment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(5), pages 1-14, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0285027
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285027
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285027&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0285027?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raghunandan, Aneesh & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2022. "Do ESG funds make stakeholder-friendly investments?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115234, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Lili Liu, 2022. "Subnational debt: developing a sustainable market," Chapters, in: Benno Ferrarini & Marcelo M. Giugale & Juan J. Pradelli (ed.), The Sustainability of Asia’s Debt, chapter 6, pages 167-187, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Sharma, Gagan Deep & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Talan, Gaurav & Jain, Mansi, 2021. "Revisiting the sustainable versus conventional investment dilemma in COVID-19 times," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Zaghum Umar & Mariya Gubareva, 2021. "The relationship between the Covid-19 media coverage and the Environmental, Social and Governance leaders equity volatility: a time-frequency wavelet analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(27), pages 3193-3206, June.
    5. Tamara Teplova & Tatiana Sokolova & Mariya Gubareva & Viktoria Sukhikh & Ning Cai, 2022. "The Multifaceted Sustainable Development and Export Intensity of Emerging Market Firms under Financial Constraints: The Role of ESG and Innovative Activity," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2022, pages 1-20, August.
    6. Aneesh Raghunandan & Shiva Rajgopal, 2022. "Do ESG funds make stakeholder-friendly investments?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 822-863, September.
    7. Mansi Jain & Gagan Deep Sharma & Mrinalini Srivastava, 2019. "Can Sustainable Investment Yield Better Financial Returns: A Comparative Study of ESG Indices and MSCI Indices," Risks, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-18, February.
    8. Li, Ying & Cen, Hongyi & Lin, Tai-Yu & Lin, Yi-Nuo & Chiu, Yung-Ho, 2022. "Sustainable coal mine and coal land development in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Umar, Zaghum & Gubareva, Mariya & Tran, Dang Khoa & Teplova, Tamara, 2021. "Impact of the Covid-19 induced panic on the Environmental, Social and Governance leaders equity volatility: A time-frequency analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(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. Gubareva, Mariya & Shafiullah, Muhammad & Teplova, Tamara, 2025. "Corrigendum to “Cross-quantile risk assessment: The interplay of crude oil, artificial intelligence, clean tech, and other markets” [Energy Economics Volume 141, January 2025, 108085]," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Hanif, Waqas & El Khoury, Rim & Gubareva, Mariya & Teplova, Tamara, 2025. "Asymmetric connectedness among regional green economies, carbon markets, and oil shocks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    3. Esparcia, Carlos & Gubareva, Mariya & Sokolova, Tatiana & Jareño, Francisco, 2025. "Cross-border ESG rating dynamics: An in-depth connectedness analysis of portfolio returns and volatilities in the USA and Canada," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(PA).

    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. Manuel Carlos Nogueira & Mara Madaleno, 2022. "Are Sustainability Indices Infected by the Volatility of Stock Indices? Analysis before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Esparcia, Carlos & Gubareva, Mariya & Sokolova, Tatiana & Jareño, Francisco, 2025. "Cross-border ESG rating dynamics: An in-depth connectedness analysis of portfolio returns and volatilities in the USA and Canada," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(PA).
    3. Zhang, Dongyang, 2023. "Does green finance really inhibit extreme hypocritical ESG risk? A greenwashing perspective exploration," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    4. Gibbon, Kayshani & Derwall, Jeroen & Gerritsen, Dirk & Koedijk, Kees, 2025. "Renaming with purpose: Investor response and fund manager behaviour after fund ESG renaming," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    5. Heena Thanki & Sweety Shah & Harishchandra Singh Rathod & Ankit D. Oza & Dumitru Doru Burduhos-Nergis, 2022. "I Am Ready to Invest in Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) Options Only If the Returns Are Not Compromised: Individual Investors’ Intentions toward SRI," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    6. Li, Qianqian & Watts, Edward M. & Zhu, Christina, 2024. "Retail investors and ESG news," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2).
    7. Wang, Wenjiao & Sun, Ziyuan & Wang, Lan, 2025. "Does ESG rating divergence exacerbate management tone manipulation? − Empirical evidence based on MD&A text," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    8. Umar, Zaghum & Polat, Onur & Choi, Sun-Yong & Teplova, Tamara, 2022. "Dynamic connectedness between non-fungible tokens, decentralized finance, and conventional financial assets in a time-frequency framework," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Olakunle Oloruntobi & Adel Gohari & Safizahanin Mokhtar & Kasypi Mokhtar & Siti Marsila Mhd. Ruslan, 2025. "Comparative analysis of long-term returns, financial considerations, and measurement challenges in future ESG investing," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(3), pages 271-297, May.
    10. Costantiello, Alberto & Leogrande, Angelo, 2023. "The Determinants of CO2 Emissions in the Context of ESG Models at World Level," MPRA Paper 117110, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Gen‐Fu Feng & Han Long & Hai‐Jie Wang & Chun‐Ping Chang, 2022. "Environmental, social and governance, corporate social responsibility, and stock returns: What are the short‐ and long‐Run relationships?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1884-1895, September.
    12. Liu, Maotao & Fang, Xubing, 2025. "How does green investor entry affect corporate carbon performance? Evidence from China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    13. Wu, Hong, 2023. "Evaluating the role of renewable energy investment resources and green finance on the economic performance: Evidence from OECD economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Tang, Tiantian & Guo, Jiahui & Zou, Liping & Luo, Lu, 2025. "ESG fund performance and fund manager trading strategy: Evidence from China," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Perote, Javier & Vicente-Lorente, José D. & Zuñiga-Vicente, Jose Angel, 2023. "How reactive is investment in US green bonds and ESG-eligible stocks in times of crisis? Exploring the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    16. Hu, Shiyang & Li, Xiao & Tian, Gary Gang & Zhao, Jianyu, 2024. "From debt breaches to employee safety: The hidden power of banking interventions," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6).
    17. Johan Hadisurya & Joni Joni & Tan Kwang En & Sinta Setiana, 2025. "How ESG and Gender Diversity Affect Firm Performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 3181-3192, May.
    18. Inigo Martin-Melero & Raul Gomez-Martinez & Maria Luisa Medrano-Garcia & Felipe Hernandez-Perlines, 2025. "Comparison of sectorial and financial data for ESG scoring of mutual funds with machine learning," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 11(1), pages 1-31, December.
    19. Bossman, Ahmed & Umar, Zaghum & Agyei, Samuel Kwaku & Junior, Peterson Owusu, 2022. "A new ICEEMDAN-based transfer entropy quantifying information flow between real estate and policy uncertainty," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 189-205.
    20. Kolling, Christopher & Busch, Timo, 2025. "Sustainability labels matter," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0285027. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.