Why Do Investors Hold Socially Responsible Mutual Funds?
73 Pages Posted: 15 Nov 2013 Last revised: 22 Jul 2017
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Why Do Investors Hold Socially Responsible Mutual Funds?
Social Preferences and Portfolio Choice
Date Written: July 19, 2017
Abstract
To understand why investors hold socially responsible mutual funds, we link administrative data to survey responses and behavior in incentivized experiments. We find that both social preferences and social signaling explain socially responsible investment (SRI) decisions. Financial motives play less of a role. Socially responsible investors in our sample expect to earn lower returns on SRI funds than on conventional funds and pay higher management fees. This suggests that investors are willing to forgo financial performance in order to invest in accordance with their social preferences.
Keywords: experimental finance, social preferences, socially responsible investments, mutual funds
JEL Classification: G11, D64, C90
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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