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Sustainable factor investing: Where doing well meets doing good

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  • Hua Fan, John
  • Michalski, Lachlan

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of ESG integration on systematic factors in Australia. While excluding non-rated stocks leads to inferior performance, simultaneously exploiting ESG scores with past returns significantly improves the Sharpe ratio and the crash risk profile of the momentum strategy. Such outperformance is more pronounced during periods of slow growth, high inflation and high credit-spreads. The improved performance, which originates from the governance dimension, can be explained by sector tilts driven by ESG integration. Overall, our findings suggest that sustainable factor investing not only allows asset-owners to include their ethical preferences while offering strong potential for wealth generation, but also provides asset managers with the opportunity to mitigate risk.

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  • Hua Fan, John & Michalski, Lachlan, 2020. "Sustainable factor investing: Where doing well meets doing good," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 230-256.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:70:y:2020:i:c:p:230-256
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2020.07.013
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    Cited by:

    1. Michalski, Lachlan & Low, Rand Kwong Yew, 2024. "Determinants of corporate credit ratings: Does ESG matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Claudio Boido & Antonio Fasano, 2023. "Mean-variance investing with factor tilting," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(2), pages 1-24, June.
    3. Eduardo C. Garrido-Merch'an & Gabriel Gonz'alez Piris & Maria Coronado Vaca, 2023. "Bayesian Optimization of ESG Financial Investments," Papers 2303.01485, arXiv.org.
    4. Khan, Muhammad Arif, 2022. "ESG disclosure and Firm performance: A bibliometric and meta analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    5. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2024. "Sustainability and credit spreads in Japan," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Rahat, Birjees & Nguyen, Pascal, 2022. "Risk-adjusted investment performance of green and black portfolios and impact of toxic divestments in emerging markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    7. Ved Dilip Beloskar & Arunima Haldar & S. V. D. Nageswara Rao, 2023. "Socially responsible investments: A retrospective review and future research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 4841-4860, November.
    8. Aono, Kohei & Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi, 2023. "When does the Japan Empowering Women Index outperform its parent and the ESG Select Leaders Indexes?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    9. Ved Dilip Beloskar & S. V. D. Nageswara Rao, 2024. "Screening activity matters: Evidence from ESG portfolio performance from an emerging market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 2593-2619, July.
    10. Ved Dilip Beloskar & S. V. D. Nageswara Rao, 2022. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Is Too Much Bad?—Evidence from India," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 29(2), pages 221-252, June.
    11. Ved Dilip Beloskar & S. V. D. Nageswara Rao, 2023. "Did ESG Save the Day? Evidence From India During the COVID-19 Crisis," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 30(1), pages 73-107, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    ESG integration; Size; Momentum; Quality; Crash risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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