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Performance and Performance Persistence of ‘Ethical’ Unit Trusts in the UK

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  • Alan Gregory
  • Julie Whittaker

Abstract

We examine performance, and persistence in the performance, of UK ‘ethical’ or SRI funds and find that performance appears to be time‐varying, showing that conclusions on performance itself are influenced by whether a static or time varying model is employed. Given evidence that many UK funds which claim to be international in nature may exhibit home bias in their portfolio allocations, we also propose a new measure for performance of international funds that allows for this and show that such recognition has important implications for the conclusions drawn with respect to these funds. We find evidence that supports persistence in performance, particularly at longer time horizons. There is some evidence that for domestic funds, past ‘winning’ SRI funds outperform ‘losing’ SRI funds to a greater extent than their control portfolio counterparts.

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  • 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, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jbfnac:v:34:y:2007:i:7-8:p:1327-1344
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5957.2007.02006.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Azmi, Wajahat & Mohamad, Shamsher & Shah, Mohamed Eskandar, 2020. "Ethical investments and financial performance: An international evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Xing Chen & Bert Scholtens, 2018. "The urge to act: A comparison of active and passive socially responsible investment funds in the United States," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(6), pages 1154-1173, November.
    3. Muñoz, Fernando & Ortiz, Cristina & Vicente, Luis, 2022. "Ethical window dressing: SRI funds are as good as their word," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    4. Alexander Kempf & Peer Osthoff, 2008. "SRI Funds: Nomen est Omen," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9‐10), pages 1276-1294, November.
    5. Alan Gregory & Maria Michou, 2009. "Industry Cost of Equity Capital: UK Evidence," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5‐6), pages 679-704, June.
    6. José Luis Miralles-Quirós & María Mar Miralles-Quirós & José Manuel Nogueira, 2020. "Sustainable Development Goals and Investment Strategies: The Profitability of Using Five-Factor Fama-French Alphas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, February.
    7. Anjum, Sohail & Qayyum, Unbreen & Qureshi, Madeeha Gohar, 2019. "Aggregate performance evaluation of US Equity Mutual Funds - Explaining the performance of Growth Funds vs. Value Funds," MPRA Paper 100043, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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