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Environmental and Social Preferences and Investments in Crypto-Assets

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Individuals invest in Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG)-assets not only because of (higher) expected returns but also driven by ethical and social considerations. Less is known about ESG-conscious investor subjective beliefs about crypto-assets and how these compare to traditional assets. Controversies surrounding the ESG footprint of certain crypto-asset classes – mainly on grounds of their energy-intensive crypto mining – offer a potentially informative object of inquiry. Leveraging a unique representative household finance survey for the Austrian population, we examine whether investors’ environmental and social preferences can explain cross- sectional differences in individual portfolio exposure to crypto-assets. We find a strong association between investors’ environmental and social preferences and the crypto-investment exposure but no significant relationship for the benchmarks of traditional asset classes such as bonds and shares.

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  • Pavel Ciaian & Andrej Cupak & Pirmin Fessler & d’Artis Kancs, 2022. "Environmental and Social Preferences and Investments in Crypto-Assets," JRC Research Reports JRC129919, Joint Research Centre.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc129919
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    Cited by:

    1. Luca Mungo & Silvia Bartolucci & Laura Alessandretti, 2023. "Cryptocurrency co-investment network: token returns reflect investment patterns," Papers 2301.02027, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crypto-assets; investment portfolio; financial behaviour; financial literacy; environmental and social preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

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