tailieunhanh - THE PERFORMANCE OF SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT FUNDS: A META­ ANALYSIS

As noted, actions foreseen within the Social Business Initiative (and on Corporate Social Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investing) could also contribute to addressing the issues explored in this Impact Assessment. Actions under the Initiative have been laid out in detail in the Social Business Communication adopted on 25th October. 10 These range from introducing as an investment priority "social enterprise" in the scope of actions under the future ESF and ERDF regulations, and identifying and developing best practices for social businesses or the creation of a database for existing labels and certifications of social enterprises, to measures aiming. | The Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds a Meta- Analysis n UNIVERSITY of SALZBURG I JU IÍ T I I . I Sebastian Rathner Working paper No. 2012-03 WORKING PAPERS IN ECONOMICS AND FINANCE The Performance of SRI Funds A Meta-Analysis The Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds A Meta-Analysis Sebastian Rathner March 2012 Abstract Empirical studies which analyse the performance of Socially Responsible Investment SRI funds relative to conventional funds find contradictory results. The aim of this paper is to investigate with the help of a meta-analysis how selected primary study characteristics influence the probability of a significant under- or outperformance of SRI funds compared with conventional funds. 25 studies with more than 500 observations are included in the meta-analysis. The results of this paper suggest that the consideration of the survivorship bias in a study increases decreases the probability of a significant outperformance underperformance of SRI funds relative to conventional funds. The focus on United States US SRI funds increases decreases the probability of a significant outperformance underperformance too. The time period influences the probability of a significant under- and outperformance of SRI funds as well but based on the results of this paper it is not possible to draw general conclusions on this variable. Keywords Corporate Social Responsibility CSR Ethical Investment Fund performance Socially Responsible Investment SRI Sustainability JEL Codes G12 M14 Department of Economics and Social Sciences University of Salzburg Residenzplatz 9 A-5010 Salzburg Austria. E-mail 1 The Performance of SRI Funds A Meta-Analysis 1 Introduction Socially Responsible Investment SRI is an investment process that combines an investor s financial objectives with environmental social or ethical considerations Renneboog et al. 2008a European Sustainable Investment Forum Eurosif 2010 . Thus SRI stock funds