Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Can Investing in Corporate Social Responsibility Lower a Company’s Cost of Capital?","authors":"Marcelo Cajias, F. Fuerst, S. Bienert","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2157184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2157184","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - – This paper aims to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings on the Design/methodology/approach - – The measure of the cost of capital reflects the perceived riskiness of individual companies expressed in the unobserved internal rate of return that investors expect to hold a risky asset. Based on descriptive portfolio estimations, panel and quantile regressions, the authors model the cost of equity capital as a function of CSR strengths and concerns obtained from the KLD-database and accounting controls. Findings - – The authors show that firms' CSR strategies differ significantly across industry sectors. Customer-orientated companies such as telecommunications and automobile outperform asset-driven sectors such as real estate or chemical companies. Furthermore, the authors find a 10-bp positive effect for one standard deviation of firms' intensive allocation of resources in sustainable activities. Research limitations/implications - – Since the authors are interested in the effect environmental, social and governance activities have on the firm's perceived market valuation rate, the authors apply the Fama-French model because of its efficiency in explaining realized returns, rather than incorporating analyst's long-term growth forecasts into the proxy for the equity premium. Practical implications - – Managers of companies with low or intermediate CSR scores may consider the financial benefits of improving their social and environmental performance. A good starting point is usually to draw up a company-wide CSR agenda, possibly guided by a dedicated CSR task force, mapping out the potential costs and benefits of such measures. In addition, by improving their CSR ratings, a company may get access to additional resources, ranging from the growing ethical investment industry to employees for whom CSR performance matters when choosing an employer. Originality/value - – The authors expand the existing literature by considering firm's CSR level to be in relation to the overall CSR performance and decompose firm's CSR agenda into strengths and concerns rather than counting the number of activities a firm is involved in. The applied methodology allows a better understanding of firm's CSR agenda and its implication for capital markets and investors on both long and short investment terms.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121436454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainable Finance - A Conceptual Outline","authors":"Henry Schaefer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2147590","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2147590","url":null,"abstract":"The concept of sustainable development affects every part of economic life. The pro-vision of liquidity and capital should contribute to a habitable ecological and social environment. This paper surveys the role of finance in the concept of sustainability. It starts with a discussion of finance and ethics, as sustainability, in principle, is an ethical concept. In the following sections, the focus is on socially responsible investments (SRIs) as the most prominent representatives of sustainable finance. Various techniques to construct such investment products and their different types are explained. We demonstrate the labor division between and the tasks of the different agents in the network of SRI. Special reference is made to empirical results concerning the performance of an asset allocation process restricted by sustainability criteria. As SRI intends to promote a firm’s contributions to social, environmental and governance issues, the question that is discussed is if and how investors can enforce such a real impact. Sustainable finance goes beyond financial investment contracts. With socially responsible property investments, research on an asset class is presented, which represents real investments with sustainability criteria. Sustainable finance with a strong focus on very direct impacts on the borrower side and partial links to philanthropy is discussed by introducing microfinance. The paper ends with a look at the valuation of a firm conducted under ecological and social criteria and with a brief discussion on carbon finance.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115337412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainable Practice and Business Profitability in Brazil","authors":"L. J. Perera, R. Gonçalves, Maria Thereza Pompa Antunes, J. O. Imoniana","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2146958","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2146958","url":null,"abstract":"Expenditures relating to sustainability practices are still institutional options and they occur based on demands of shareholders, with the reflection of social expectations. Porter and Kramer (2006) claim that investments in social value creation should be viewed as long-term strategy of the company, not influencing their immediate financial results. The aim of this study was to identify, through analysis of selected economic and financial indicators, if significant variations of these indicators as a result of the certification of companies by the Corporate Sustainability Index (SRI), used as a proxy for sustainable practices. The methodology used was the study of event with accounting data. Data from three separate chronological series: before preparing for certification (implementation), pre-certification and post certification series. Data were obtained from the Economatica database and of CVM and the study followed the Quarterly Information (ITR's) of business for a period of five years. The main results indicate that the analyzed indices (ROA, ROE, ROS e EBTIDA) fit in the pre-certification and do not reveal significant changes in the period up to two years post-certification – thereby validating the assertion of Porter and Kramer (2006).","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129430060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reconciling IMF Rules and International Investment Agreements: An Innovative Derogation for Capital Controls","authors":"Elizabeth Broomfield","doi":"10.7916/D82Z1DRH","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D82Z1DRH","url":null,"abstract":"In the absence of an international framework governing capital controls, a conflict has developed due to the different approaches towards such controls taken by various international organizations and international investment agreements (IIAs). This Perspective argues that IIAs should incorporate derogations for countries when treaty obligations conflict with IMF recommendations to impose controls in response to severe economic hardship.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114619904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Global Adversarial Legalism: Global Private Governance of FDI as a Species of Global Administrative Law","authors":"Ariel Meyerstein","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2133197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2133197","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that the fractured nature of the governance of foreign direct investment ('FDI') has given rise to a two-faceted 'global adversarial legalism.' One facet of this global adversarial legalism, already much debated, is the concern that investment arbitration tribunals exercise an overly broad and perhaps illegitimate form of 'global administrative review' of State measures. This paper focuses on the other side of this global adversarial legalism that has not received sufficient scholarly attention: the advent of FDI-impacted individuals and communities alleging violations of voluntary transnational norms espoused by corporate actors involved in regimes of global private regulation. The primary example of this more recent phenomenon is the emergence of the Equator Principles, a regime of private global governance created by investment banks. The EPs standardize the banks’ environmental and social risk management of their investments in large infrastructure projects developed in host states whose weak regulatory capacities fail to prevent or mitigate project impacts. Just as arbitral clauses in public contracts can internationalize a dispute for resolution by a transnational arbitral tribunal, the EPs’ application to a project loan expands the substantive criteria applicable to project review and creates additional layers of review of corporate compliance with national and international norms. This interaction also creates a complicated dynamic with regard to State sovereignty and decision making related to national development agendas. By creating a global standard, the private regime empowers civil society actors and others not party to the underlying contracts to intervene in national debates and inter-governmental branch dialogue concerning project review and approval, thereby instantiating a quasi-administrative review that has powerful effects in the court of public opinion, even though - unlike traditional treaty-based transnational legal processes - the States have not themselves consented either to the substantive norms nor to the ‘jurisdiction’ of these processes. The paper also addresses the challenging normative implications of such adversarial legalism: how the protection of marginalized communities and ecosystems can impose broader societal transaction costs on national economic development.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114606169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are Social Investors Influential?","authors":"B. Richardson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2083483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2083483","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines socially responsible investment (SRI) and its means of influence and argues that they presently do not enable SRI to greatly influence the social and environmental behaviour of the market.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125318440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What Aspects of CSR Really Matter: An Exploratory Study Using Workplace Mortality Data","authors":"A. Sulkowski, Jonathan Barboza, Jacob Vaillancourt, Aneta Studnicka","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1942014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1942014","url":null,"abstract":"This work contributes to a growing and important body of research that tests whether there is any relationship between reporting positive corporate social responsibility metrics and their return-on-investment for stockholders. Following a review of key literature, this article will test the following hypothesis: whether a portfolio of stocks of companies that produce CSR reports that reveal the lowest on-the-job mortality rates produce better returns for investors than a portfolio of stocks of companies that produce CSR reports that reveal highest on-the-job mortality rates. Indeed, stocks of companies with lowest rates of workplace mortality on average increased in value more than the stocks of companies with the highest rates of workplace mortality, especially in a shorter observation period. However, somewhat disturbing, counterintuitive and thought-provoking, the difference in stock performance is found to not be statistically strong over a longer observation period. In the discussion section, the authors consider whether some CSR metrics are too granular to impact stock performance, whether the impacts of changes in some metrics become evident over a longer observation period, or whether outside factors affected the results. The study concludes by pointing to several new directions for promising research.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116884214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The State of Sustainable Investment in Key Emerging Markets","authors":"Melsa Ararat, Esra Suel","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1989869","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1989869","url":null,"abstract":"Since 2009 International Finance Corporation (IFC) has produced a series of sustainable investment country reports covering major emerging capital markets attracting global portfolio investors: Brazil, India, China, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Turkey. This report provides a snapshot of the findings of these country reports and seeks to identify common themes and trends across and highlight crucial differences among these markets. To support the growth of sustainable capital flows, IFC Advisory Services team seeks to influence, support, and enable capital allocation and portfolio management processes, using IFC's own investment practices as a model. IFC is playing its part in supporting the growth of the market by funding the development of enhanced stock market indices and financial instruments and through targeted market research. While this report seeks to capture the findings from the individual reports it does not reflect specific input from the authors themselves. Equally the synthesis and analysis reflects the thoughts of the author of this report not of the individual country reports. The report also consider the supply of financial capital in various classes and forms to listed and privately held firms with a consideration of the investment's impact on economic and social development or on investors' values.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"71 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126279960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Farmers Home Administration's Social Discount Rate","authors":"R. Brent","doi":"10.1080/758520664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/758520664","url":null,"abstract":"The aim was to estimate the SDR revealed by past decisions by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) concerning their farm-ownership programme in New York State. These decisions involved trading off a current loan against a long stream of future farm profits. The ratio of the coefficients to these two variables in a logit equation produced the estimate of the SDR. The main finding was that a very high rate of discount was uncovered, in the range 70–73%. These high rates may be explained by ‘individual risk’ and the life-cycle context in which the estimates were made.","PeriodicalId":185902,"journal":{"name":"Investment & Social Responsibility eJournal","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1989-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124335768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}