IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v73y2025ipbs027553192400432x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integration of investor behavioral perspective and climate change in reinforcement learning for portfolio optimization

Author

Listed:
  • Bouyaddou, Youssef
  • Jebabli, Ikram

Abstract

Addressing environmental impact is increasingly imperative for individual investors and large financial institutions, making it a key objective of socially responsible investing. However, there is a noticeable gap in research on integrating sustainability and low-carbon considerations into machine learning-based portfolio optimization. To meet this challenge, this study introduces a Portfolio Emissions Sentiment Attention Aware Reinforcement Learning (PESAARL) model based on the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm to optimize a portfolio of Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) stocks. PESAARL uniquely integrates environmental impact considerations, specifically carbon footprint using the firm level scope 1 and scope 2 emissions data, alongside firm-level investor sentiment and attention, into the investment decision-making process. Through multiple experiments, PESAARL demonstrates significant advantages, in terms of financial and environmental performance, over the benchmarks.

Suggested Citation

  • Bouyaddou, Youssef & Jebabli, Ikram, 2025. "Integration of investor behavioral perspective and climate change in reinforcement learning for portfolio optimization," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:73:y:2025:i:pb:s027553192400432x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102639
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027553192400432X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102639?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Loprevite, Salvatore & Raucci, Domenico & Ricca, Bruno & Rupo, Daniela, 2022. "Investigating the marginal impact of ESG results on corporate financial performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    2. Bukovina, Jaroslav, 2016. "Social media big data and capital markets—An overview," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 18-26.
    3. Weng Hoe Lam & Weng Siew Lam & Kah Fai Liew & Pei Fun Lee, 2023. "Decision Analysis on the Financial Performance of Companies Using Integrated Entropy-Fuzzy TOPSIS Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-18, January.
    4. Samuel M. Hartzmark & Abigail B. Sussman, 2019. "Do Investors Value Sustainability? A Natural Experiment Examining Ranking and Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(6), pages 2789-2837, December.
    5. Nhi N.Y.Vo & Xue-Zhong He & Shaowu Liu & Guandong Xu, 2019. "Deep Learning for Decision Making and the Optimization of Socially Responsible Investments and Portfolio," Published Paper Series 2019-3, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    6. Santi, Caterina, 2023. "Investor climate sentiment and financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    7. Jiayu Qiu & Bin Wang & Changjun Zhou, 2020. "Forecasting stock prices with long-short term memory neural network based on attention mechanism," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, January.
    8. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    9. Amir Amel-Zadeh & George Serafeim, 2018. "Why and How Investors Use ESG Information: Evidence from a Global Survey," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 74(3), pages 87-103, July.
    10. Broda, Simon A. & Krause, Jochen & Paolella, Marc S., 2018. "Approximating expected shortfall for heavy-tailed distributions," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 184-203.
    11. Ngo, Vu Minh & Nguyen, Huan Huu & Van Nguyen, Phuc, 2023. "Does reinforcement learning outperform deep learning and traditional portfolio optimization models in frontier and developed financial markets?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    12. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    13. Ballinari, Daniele & Audrino, Francesco & Sigrist, Fabio, 2022. "When does attention matter? The effect of investor attention on stock market volatility around news releases," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91, March.
    15. Steuer, Ralph E. & Utz, Sebastian, 2023. "Non-contour efficient fronts for identifying most preferred portfolios in sustainability investing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 742-753.
    16. Azi Ben-Rephael & Zhi Da & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2017. "It Depends on Where You Search: Institutional Investor Attention and Underreaction to News," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(9), pages 3009-3047.
    17. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    18. Timm O. Sprenger & Philipp G. Sandner & Andranik Tumasjan & Isabell M. Welpe, 2014. "News or Noise? Using Twitter to Identify and Understand Company-specific News Flow," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(7-8), pages 791-830, September.
    19. Ben Hambly & Renyuan Xu & Huining Yang, 2021. "Recent Advances in Reinforcement Learning in Finance," Papers 2112.04553, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    20. Mingyu Fang & Ken Seng Tan & Tony S. Wirjanto, 2019. "Sustainable portfolio management under climate change," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 45-67, January.
    21. Selin Duz Tan & Oktay Tas, 2021. "Social Media Sentiment in International Stock Returns and Trading Activity," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 221-234, April.
    22. Dong Lou, 2014. "Attracting Investor Attention through Advertising," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(6), pages 1797-1829.
    23. Zhang, Yongjie & Chu, Gang & Shen, Dehua, 2021. "The role of investor attention in predicting stock prices: The long short-term memory networks perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    24. Hailiang Chen & Prabuddha De & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, 2014. "Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(5), pages 1367-1403.
    25. Davoodi, Shayan & Fereydooni, Ali & Rastegar, Mohammad Ali, 2024. "Can portfolio construction considering ESG still gain high profits?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    26. Jennifer Bender & Todd Arthur Bridges & Kushal Shah, 2019. "Reinventing climate investing: building equity portfolios for climate risk mitigation and adaptation," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 191-213, July.
    27. Ben Hambly & Renyuan Xu & Huining Yang, 2023. "Recent advances in reinforcement learning in finance," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 437-503, July.
    28. Anand, Abhinav & Li, Tiantian & Kurosaki, Tetsuo & Kim, Young Shin, 2016. "Foster–Hart optimal portfolios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 117-130.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rui Fan & Oleksandr Talavera & Vu Tran, 2020. "Social media bots and stock markets," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), pages 753-777, June.
    2. Wen, Danyan & Zhang, Zihao & Nie, Jing & Cao, Yang, 2024. "Investor attention and anomalies: Evidence from the Chinese stock market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    3. Jūra Liaukonytė & Alminas Žaldokas, 2022. "Background Noise? TV Advertising Affects Real-Time Investor Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2465-2484, April.
    4. Gao, Ya & Xiong, Xiong & Feng, Xu & Li, Youwei & Vigne, Samuel A., 2019. "A new attention proxy and order imbalance: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 411-417.
    5. Warkulat, Sonja & Pelster, Matthias, 2024. "Social media attention and retail investor behavior: Evidence from r/wallstreetbets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    6. Chen, Xing & Wu, Chongfeng, 2022. "Retail investor attention and information asymmetry: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Rui Fan & Oleksandr Talavera & Vu Tran, 2018. "Does connection with @realDonaldTrump affect stock prices?," Working Papers 2018-07, Swansea University, School of Management.
    8. Goodell, John W. & Kumar, Satish & Li, Xiao & Pattnaik, Debidutta & Sharma, Anuj, 2022. "Foundations and research clusters in investor attention: Evidence from bibliometric and topic modelling analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 511-529.
    9. Wenwen Liu & Jinyu Yang & Jingrui Chen & Lei Xu, 2023. "How Social-Network Attention and Sentiment of Investors Affect Commodity Futures Market Returns: New Evidence From China," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, January.
    10. Umar, Tarik, 2022. "Complexity aversion when SeekingAlpha," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    11. Alina Lerman, 2020. "Individual Investors' Attention to Accounting Information: Evidence from Online Financial Communities," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2020-2057, December.
    12. Cookson, J. Anthony & Lu, Runjing & Mullins, William & Niessner, Marina, 2024. "The social signal," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    13. Chen, Zhongdong & Schmidt, Adam & Wang, Jin’ai, 2021. "Retail investor risk-seeking, attention, and the January effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    14. Wang, Chen & Shen, Dehua & Li, Youwei, 2022. "Aggregate Investor Attention and Bitcoin Return: The Long Short-term Memory Networks Perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    15. De Souza, Heloisa Elias & Barbedo, Claudio Henrique Da Silveira & Araújo, Gustavo Silva, 2018. "Does investor attention affect trading volume in the Brazilian stock market?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 480-487.
    16. Guomei Tang & Xueyong Zhang, 2021. "Media attention to locations and the cross‐section of stock returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 2301-2336, April.
    17. González-Fernández, Marcos & González-Velasco, Carmen, 2020. "A sentiment index to measure sovereign risk using Google data," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 406-418.
    18. Lyócsa, Štefan & Halousková, Martina & Haugom, Erik, 2023. "The US banking crisis in 2023: Intraday attention and price variation of banks at risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    19. Wu, Chunying & Xiong, Xiong & Gao, Ya & Zhang, Jin, 2022. "Does social media distort price discovery? Evidence from rumor clarifications," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    20. Cai, Haidong & Jiang, Ying & Liu, Xiaoquan, 2022. "Investor attention, aggregate limit-hits, and stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:73:y:2025:i:pb:s027553192400432x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ribaf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.