IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jau/wpaper/2014-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Ethical Money Sensitive to Past Returns? The Case of Portfolio Constraints and Persistence of Islamic and Socially Responsible Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Omneya Abdelsalam

    (Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK)

  • Meryem Duygun

    (School of Management, University of Leicester, UK)

  • Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez

    (Finance and Accounting Dept., Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)

  • Emili Tortosa-Ausina

    (IVIE, Valencia and Department of Economics, Universidad Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)

Abstract

We analyse the performance persistence and survivorship bias of Islamic and Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds. The remarkable growth of these two types of ethical funds over the last two decades raises the question of how non-financial attributes influence performance and performance persistence. We propose a refined version of the procedures used in the literature based on a cross-sectional test to control for significance of the recursive portfolios according to past performance. This procedure allows us to correctly identify whether this abnormal performance is due to a dynamic investment strategy based on past performance, or whether it is obtained by simply investing in a particular set of mutual funds. The analysis shows that Islamic funds were particularly resilient during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Regarding persistence, its significance varies depending on the time horizon (yearly/half-yearly), survivorship, or tail of the distribution. According to the type of fund we find that, in the case of Islamic funds, persistence only exists for the best funds. However, for SRI funds, evidence is weaker and persistence only exists for the worst funds.

Suggested Citation

  • Omneya Abdelsalam & Meryem Duygun & Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2014. "Is Ethical Money Sensitive to Past Returns? The Case of Portfolio Constraints and Persistence of Islamic and Socially Responsible Funds," Working Papers 2014/19, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    • Handle: RePEc:jau:wpaper:2014/19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.doctreballeco.uji.es/wpficheros/Abdelsalam_et_al_19_2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Performance Measurement without Benchmarks: An Examination of Mutual Fund Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(1), pages 47-68, January.
    2. Martin Rohleder & Hendrik Scholz & Marco Wilkens, 2010. "Survivorship Bias and Mutual Fund Performance: Relevance, Significance, and Methodical Differences," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(2), pages 441-474.
    3. Michael C. Jensen, 1968. "The Performance Of Mutual Funds In The Period 1945–1964," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(2), pages 389-416, May.
    4. Randolph B. Cohen & Joshua D. Coval & Ľuboš Pástor, 2005. "Judging Fund Managers by the Company They Keep," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1057-1096, June.
    5. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    6. Laurent Barras & Olivier Scaillet & Russ Wermers, 2010. "False Discoveries in Mutual Fund Performance: Measuring Luck in Estimated Alphas," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 179-216, February.
    7. Marcin Kacperczyk & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2009. "Rational Attention Allocation Over the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 15450, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Anthony W. Lynch & David K. Musto, 2003. "How Investors Interpret Past Fund Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 2033-2058, October.
    9. Jeffrey A. Busse & Amit Goyal & Sunil Wahal, 2010. "Performance and Persistence in Institutional Investment Management," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(2), pages 765-790, April.
    10. Elton, Edwin J, et al, 1993. "Efficiency with Costly Information: A Reinterpretation of Evidence from Managed Portfolios," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(1), pages 1-22.
    11. Brown, Stephen J & Goetzmann, William N, 1995. "Performance Persistence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 679-698, June.
    12. G Quigley & R A Sinquefield, 2000. "Performance of UK equity unit trusts," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 72-92, July.
    13. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan, 1992. "The Persistence of Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1977-1984, December.
    14. Renneboog, Luc & Ter Horst, Jenke & Zhang, Chendi, 2011. "Is ethical money financially smart? Nonfinancial attributes and money flows of socially responsible investment funds," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 562-588, October.
    15. Robert Kosowski, 2011. "Do Mutual Funds Perform When It Matters Most to Investors? US Mutual Fund Performance and Risk in Recessions and Expansions," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(03), pages 607-664.
    16. Rogér Otten & Dennis Bams, 2004. "How to measure mutual fund performance: economic versus statistical relevance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 44(2), pages 203-222, July.
    17. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    18. Mark M. Carhart & Jennifer N. Carpenter & Anthony W. Lynch & David K. Musto, 2002. "Mutual Fund Survivorship," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1439-1463.
    19. Nicolas P. B. Bollen, 2005. "Short-Term Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 569-597.
    20. Massimo Massa, 2009. "Incentives and Mutual Fund Performance: Higher Performance or Just Higher Risk Taking?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1777-1815, May.
    21. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2005. "On the Industry Concentration of Actively Managed Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1983-2011, August.
    22. Rob Bauer & Jeroen Derwall & Rogér Otten, 2007. "The Ethical Mutual Fund Performance Debate: New Evidence from Canada," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 111-124, January.
    23. Malkiel, Burton G, 1995. "Returns from Investing in Equity Mutual Funds 1971 to 1991," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 549-572, June.
    24. Godlewski, Christophe J. & Turk-Ariss, Rima & Weill, Laurent, 2013. "Sukuk vs. conventional bonds: A stock market perspective," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 745-761.
    25. Avramov, Doron & Wermers, Russ, 2006. "Investing in mutual funds when returns are predictable," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 339-377, August.
    26. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    27. Bauer, Rob & Koedijk, Kees & Otten, Roger, 2005. "International evidence on ethical mutual fund performance and investment style," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1751-1767, July.
    28. Robert Kosowski & Allan Timmermann & Russ Wermers & Hal White, 2006. "Can Mutual Fund “Stars” Really Pick Stocks? New Evidence from a Bootstrap Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2551-2595, December.
    29. Stephen Fowler & C. Hope, 2007. "A Critical Review of Sustainable Business Indices and their Impact," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 76(3), pages 243-252, December.
    30. Cuthbertson, Keith & Nitzsche, Dirk & O'Sullivan, Niall, 2008. "UK mutual fund performance: Skill or luck?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 613-634, September.
    31. Deaves, Richard, 2004. "Data-conditioning biases, performance, persistence and flows: The case of Canadian equity funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 673-694, March.
    32. Brown, Stephen J, et al, 1992. "Survivorship Bias in Performance Studies," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(4), pages 553-580.
    33. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355.
    34. Huij, Joop & Derwall, Jeroen, 2011. "Global equity fund performance, portfolio concentration, and the fundamental law of active management," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 155-165, January.
    35. Mohamed Albaity & Rubi Ahmad, 2008. "Performance of Syariah and Composite Indices: Evidence from Bursa Malaysia," Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting and Finance (AAMJAF), Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, vol. 4(1), pages 23-43.
    36. Noor Hashim, 2008. "The FTSE Global Islamic and the Risk Dilemma," AIUB Bus Econ Working Paper Series AIUB-BUS-ECON-2008-08, American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB), Office of Research and Publications (ORP), revised Mar 2008.
    37. Hendricks, Darryll & Patel, Jayendu & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1993. "Hot Hands in Mutual Funds: Short-Run Persistence of Relative Performance, 1974-1988," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 93-130, March.
    38. Abdelsalam, Omneya & Duygun, Meryem & Matallín-Sáez, Juan Carlos & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2014. "Do ethics imply persistence? The case of Islamic and socially responsible funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 182-194.
    39. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Blake, Christopher R, 1996. "The Persistence of Risk-Adjusted Mutual Fund Performance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(2), pages 133-157, April.
    40. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2010. "Luck versus Skill in the Cross‐Section of Mutual Fund Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1915-1947, October.
    41. Hayat, Raphie & Kraeussl, Roman, 2011. "Risk and return characteristics of Islamic equity funds," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 189-203, June.
    42. 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.
    43. Alan Gregory & Julie Whittaker, 2007. "Performance and Performance Persistence of 'Ethical' Unit Trusts in the UK," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(7-8), pages 1327-1344.
    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. Amelia Bilbao-Terol & Mar Arenas-Parra & Verónica Cañal-Fernández & Celia Bilbao-Terol, 2016. "Multi-criteria decision making for choosing socially responsible investment within a behavioral portfolio theory framework: a new way of investing into a crisis environment," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 247(2), pages 549-580, December.

    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. Omneya Abdelsalam & Meryem Duygun & Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2017. "Is Ethical Money Sensitive to Past Returns? The Case of Portfolio Constraints and Persistence in Islamic Funds," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 363-384, June.
    2. Abdelsalam, Omneya & Duygun, Meryem & Matallín-Sáez, Juan Carlos & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2014. "Do ethics imply persistence? The case of Islamic and socially responsible funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 182-194.
    3. Matallín-Sáez, Juan Carlos & Soler-Domínguez, Amparo & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2016. "On the robustness of persistence in mutual fund performance," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 192-231.
    4. Scott Bennett & David R. Gallagher & Graham Harman & Geoffrey J. Warren & Yuki Xi, 2018. "A new perspective on performance persistence: evidence using portfolio holdings," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(1), pages 91-125, March.
    5. Vidal-García, Javier, 2013. "The persistence of European mutual fund performance," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 45-67.
    6. Vidal-García, Javier & Vidal, Marta & Boubaker, Sabri & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2016. "The short-term persistence of international mutual fund performance," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 926-938.
    7. Elton, Edwin J. & Gruber, Martin J., 2013. "Mutual Funds," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1011-1061, Elsevier.
    8. Andrew Clare & Mariana Clare, 2019. "An examination of ex ante fund performance: identifying indicators of future performance," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(3), pages 175-195, May.
    9. Lean, Hooi Hooi & Ang, Wei Rong & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "Performance and performance persistence of socially responsible investment funds in Europe and North America," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 254-266.
    10. Dimitrios Koutmos & Bochen Wu & Qi Zhang, 2020. "In search of winning mutual funds in the Chinese stock market," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 589-616, February.
    11. Makni, Rania & Benouda, Olfa & Delhoumi, Ezzedine, 2016. "International evidence on Islamic equity fund characteristics and performance persistence," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 75-82.
    12. Gao, Jun & O’Sullivan, Niall & Sherman, Meadhbh, 2017. "Performance persistence in Chinese securities investment funds," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1467-1477.
    13. Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez & Amparo Soler-Domínguez & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2016. "Ethical strategy focus and mutual fund management: performance and persistence," Working Papers 2016/01, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    14. Chris Bilson & Angela Frino & Richard Heaney, 2005. "Australian retail fund performance persistence," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 45(1), pages 25-42, March.
    15. Ferson, Wayne E., 2013. "Investment Performance: A Review and Synthesis," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 969-1010, Elsevier.
    16. Bialkowski, Jedrzej & Otten, Roger, 2011. "Emerging market mutual fund performance: Evidence for Poland," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 118-130, August.
    17. Bangassa, Kenbata & Su, Chen & Joseph, Nathan L., 2012. "Selectivity and timing performance of UK investment trusts," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 1149-1175.
    18. Andrea Flori & Fabrizio Lillo & Fabio Pammolli & Alessandro Spelta, 2021. "Better to stay apart: asset commonality, bipartite network centrality, and investment strategies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 299(1), pages 177-213, April.
    19. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    20. Ekholm, Anders G., 2012. "Portfolio returns and manager activity: How to decompose tracking error into security selection and market timing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 349-358.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Islamic funds; SRI funds; performance; persistence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • N25 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Asia including Middle East
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    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:jau:wpaper:2014/19. 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: María Aurora Garcia Gallego (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ueujies.html .

    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.