IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/rafpps/v9y2010i2p180-188.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The performance of socially responsible mutual funds: a volatility‐match approach

Author

Listed:
  • Javier Rodríguez

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of a sample of socially responsible mutual funds (SRMFs) and a matched sample of conventional funds during the 1997‐2005 time period. Design/methodology/approach - Risk‐adjusted performance is examined using several methodologies, including a measure that compares the performance of a fund with that of an efficient and volatility‐match benchmark portfolio. Findings - On the basis of the raw returns, socially responsible funds performed better than some market indexes but this evidence of outperformance disappears once risk is incorporated into the analysis. Consistent with previous studies, no evidence was found of out performance by socially responsible funds. Also, the difference between the performance of SRMFs and conventional mutual funds is not statistically significant. This result is robust to the use of two additional measures of risk‐adjusted performance. Originality/value - To measure risk‐adjusted performance, a measure first introduced by Graham and Harvey was employed. Similar to the Jensen's alpha of a single factor model, the Graham and Harvey measure evaluates fund performance relative to a volatility‐match benchmark but does not depend on a linear model specification and thus is free from the potential biases presented by linear models.

Suggested Citation

  • Javier Rodríguez, 2010. "The performance of socially responsible mutual funds: a volatility‐match approach," Review of Accounting and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(2), pages 180-188, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:rafpps:v:9:y:2010:i:2:p:180-188
    DOI: 10.1108/14757701011044189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/14757701011044189/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/14757701011044189/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/14757701011044189?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. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Blake, Christopher R, 1996. "Survivorship Bias and Mutual Fund Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(4), pages 1097-1120.
    2. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    3. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan D, 1989. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Analysis of Quarterly Portfolio Holdings," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 393-416, July.
    4. Bollen, Nicolas P. B., 2007. "Mutual Fund Attributes and Investor Behavior," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 683-708, September.
    5. Ferson, Wayne E & Schadt, Rudi W, 1996. "Measuring Fund Strategy and Performance in Changing Economic Conditions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 425-461, June.
    6. Wayne Ferson & Tyler R. Henry & Darren J. Kisgen, 2006. "Evaluating Government Bond Fund Performance with Stochastic Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 423-455.
    7. Zakri Y. Bello, 2005. "Socially Responsible Investing And Portfolio Diversification," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 28(1), pages 41-57, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drudi, Francesco & Moench, Emanuel & Holthausen, Cornelia & Weber, Pierre-François & Ferrucci, Gianluigi & Setzer, Ralph & Adao, Bernardino & Dées, Stéphane & Alogoskoufis, Spyros & Téllez, Mar Delgad, 2021. "Climate change and monetary policy in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 271, European Central Bank.

    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. Ferson, Wayne E., 2013. "Investment Performance: A Review and Synthesis," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 969-1010, Elsevier.
    2. Ayadi, Mohamed A. & Kryzanowski, Lawrence & Mohebshahedin, Mahmood, 2018. "Impact of sponsorship on fixed-income fund performance," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 121-137.
    3. 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.
    4. Huang, Rong & Pilbeam, Keith & Pouliot, William, 2021. "Do actively managed US mutual funds produce positive alpha?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 472-492.
    5. Grose, Chris & Dasilas, Apostolos & Alexakis, Christos, 2014. "Performance persistence in fixed interest funds: With an eye on the post-debt crisis period," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 155-182.
    6. Elton, Edwin J. & Gruber, Martin J., 2013. "Mutual Funds," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1011-1061, Elsevier.
    7. Leite, Paulo & Cortez, Maria Céu, 2014. "Style and performance of international socially responsible funds in Europe," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 248-267.
    8. Keith Cuthbertson & Dirk Nitzsche & Niall O' Sullivan, 2004. "UK Mutual Fund Performance: Genuine Stock-Picking Ability or Luck," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2004 55, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    9. Carmen-Pilar Mart¨ª-Ballester, 2012. "A Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Collective Investment Institutions," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 2, pages 43-52, May.
    10. Sebastian Rathner, 2013. "The Influence of Primary Study Characteristics on the Performance Differential Between Socially Responsible and Conventional Investment Funds: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 349-363, December.
    11. Ferson, Wayne & Mo, Haitao, 2016. "Performance measurement with selectivity, market and volatility timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 93-110.
    12. Deaves, Richard, 2004. "Data-conditioning biases, performance, persistence and flows: The case of Canadian equity funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 673-694, March.
    13. Juan C. Matallín‐Sáez, 2006. "Seasonality, Market Timing and Performance Amongst Benchmarks and Mutual Fund Evaluation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(9‐10), pages 1484-1507, November.
    14. Laura Fabregat-Aibar & M. Glòria Barberà-Mariné & Antonio Terceño & Laia Pié, 2019. "A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis of Socially Responsible Funds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-17, May.
    15. Juan Carlos Matallin & Luisa Nieto, 2002. "Mutual funds as an alternative to direct stock investment: A cointegration approach," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(10), pages 743-750.
    16. Jeon, Hyunglae & Kang, Jangkoo & Lee, Changjun, 2017. "Precision about manager skill, mutual fund flows, and performance persistence," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 222-237.
    17. Blake, David & Caulfield, Tristan & Ioannidis, Christos & Tonks, Ian, 2014. "Improved inference in the evaluation of mutual fund performance using panel bootstrap methods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(2), pages 202-210.
    18. Lars Hornuf & Gül Yüksel, 2022. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Investments: A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 9724, CESifo.
    19. Luis Ferruz & Fernando Muñoz & María Vargas, 2012. "Managerial Abilities: Evidence from Religious Mutual Fund Managers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(4), pages 503-517, February.
    20. Qiang Bu & Nelson Lacey, 2009. "On understanding mutual fund terminations," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 33(1), pages 80-99, January.

    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:eme:rafpps:v:9:y:2010:i:2:p:180-188. 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.