IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2509.22600.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impact IRR: Leveraging Modern Portfolio Theory to Define Impact Investments

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Soliman

Abstract

The impact investment market has an estimated value of almost $1.6 trillion. Significant progress has been made in determining the financial returns of impact investing. Investors are still, however, in the early stages of determining impact return. In this study, the author proposes the use of impact internal rate of return (impact IRR) to evaluate and monitor impact investments. This approach, which utilizes components of modern portfolio theory, adapted financial tools, and existing datasets, is demonstrated herein through initial use cases and examples showing how it can be employed to optimize impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Soliman, 2025. "Impact IRR: Leveraging Modern Portfolio Theory to Define Impact Investments," Papers 2509.22600, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2509.22600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.22600
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shawn Cole & Martin Melecky & Florian Mölders & Tristan Reed, 2020. "Long-run Returns to Private Equity in Emerging Markets," NBER Working Papers 27870, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Augustin Landier & Stefano Lovo, 2020. "ESG Investing: How to Optimize Impact?," Working Papers hal-02896673, HAL.
    3. Landier, Augustin & Lovo, Stefano, 2020. "ESG Investing: How to Optimize Impact?," HEC Research Papers Series 1363, HEC Paris.
    4. Jeffers, Jessica & Lyu, Tianshu & Posenau, Kelly, 2024. "The risk and return of impact investing funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(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. Inderst, Roman & Opp, Markus, 2022. "Socially optimal sustainability standards with non-consequentialist ("warm glow") investors," SAFE Working Paper Series 346, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    2. Martin Oehmke & Marcus M Opp, 2025. "A Theory of Socially Responsible Investment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(2), pages 1193-1225.
    3. Popescu, Ioana-Stefania & Gibon, Thomas & Hitaj, Claudia & Rubin, Mirco & Benetto, Enrico, 2023. "Are SRI funds financing carbon emissions? An input-output life cycle assessment of investment funds," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Krahnen Jan & Rocholl Jörg & Thum Marcel, 2023. "A Primer on Green Finance: From Wishful Thinking to Marginal Impact," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 74(1), pages 1-19, April.
    7. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Eric Jondeau, 2023. "Greening the Swiss National Bank’s Portfolio," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(4), pages 792-833.
    8. Hendrik Hakenes & Eva Schliephake, 2021. "Responsible Investment and Responsible Consumption," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 134, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    9. Christian Gollier & Sébastien Pouget, 2022. "Investment Strategies and Corporate Behaviour with Socially Responsible Investors: A Theory of Active Ownership," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(356), pages 997-1023, October.
    10. Bond, Philip & Levit, Doron, 2025. "ESG: A panacea for market power?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    11. Bianchi, Milo & Liu, Zhengkai & Wang, Gang, 2022. "Are We Becoming Greener? Life-time Experiences and Responsible Investment," TSE Working Papers 22-1382, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Lei Li & Kun Qin & Desheng Wu, 2023. "A Hybrid Approach for the Assessment of Risk Spillover to ESG Investment in Financial Networks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-16, April.
    13. Pierre Lavigne & Peter Tankov, 2023. "Decarbonization of financial markets: a mean-field game approach," Papers 2301.09163, arXiv.org.
    14. Bonnefon, Jean-François & Landier, Augustin & Sastry, Parinitha & Thesmar, David, 2025. "The moral preferences of investors: Experimental evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    15. Olivier David Zerbib, 2022. "A Sustainable Capital Asset Pricing Model (S-CAPM): Evidence from Environmental Integration and Sin Stock Exclusion [Asset pricing with liquidity risk]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1345-1388.
    16. Hakenes, Hendrik & Schliephake, Eva, 2022. "Responsible Investment and Responsible Consumption," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264004, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Tiziano De Angelis & Peter Tankov & Olivier David Zerbib, 2023. "Climate Impact Investing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(12), pages 7669-7692, December.
    18. Allen,Franklin & Barbalau,Adelina & Zeni,Federica, 2023. "Reducing Carbon using Regulatory and Financial Market Tools," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10539, The World Bank.
    19. Florian Heeb & Julian F Kölbel & Falko Paetzold & Stefan Zeisberger, 2023. "Do Investors Care about Impact?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(5), pages 1737-1787.
    20. Josh Lerner & Markus Lithell & Gordon M. Phillips, 2025. "Impact Investing and Worker Outcomes," Working Papers 25-30, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    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:arx:papers:2509.22600. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.