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Moral Money in Sub-Saharan Africa ? Ensuring ethics to drive sustainable investment

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  • Kohnert, Dirk

Abstract

Money rules the world. But the importance of money is far greater than conventional economic theory and its heroic equations suggest. People have invented their own forms of currency, they have used money in ways that baffle market theorists, they have incorporated money into friendship and family relationships, and they have changed the process of spending and saving. Individuals, families, governments and businesses have given money a social meaning in ways that economists could not even dream of before. A century ago, Georg Simmel, in his Philosophy of Money, pointed to various systems of exchange for goods and services that made possible the existence of incomparable value systems (land, food, honour, love, etc.) that supposedly made personal freedom possible. More recently, Ariel Wilkis brought Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of power into dialogue with Viviana Zelizer's sociology of money. He showed that money is a crucial symbol used to negotiate not only material possessions but also the political, economic, class, gender and generational ties between people. The growing threat of international terrorism has raised awareness that its existence is in itself an economic fact, as it is financed in various ways. The Moral Money Summit Africa, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November 2023, aims to unlock capital to promote sustainable growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This is overdue, considering that multinational companies in SSA have been polluting the environment for decades and that corruption, money laundering, investments in conflict diamonds, arms and drug trafficking are widespread. The summit aims to answer questions such as: What role can Africa play in the global decarbonisation dilemma? How can ethics be ensured in commodity supply chains? How can ethical investors avoid investing in "sin stocks" such as "blood diamonds", arms and drug trafficking? However, given the unbroken power of multinational corporations and investment managers, the outcome of such summits is questionable. Comparative analyses of ESG awareness and frameworks in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone African countries reveal significant differences. The most powerful three global asset managers, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, still show "rational restraint", especially with regard to firm-specific sustainability activism. Also they can use their power to engage in "rational hypocrisy", similar to corporate

Suggested Citation

  • Kohnert, Dirk, 2023. "Moral Money in Sub-Saharan Africa ? Ensuring ethics to drive sustainable investment," EconStor Preprints 300926, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:300926
    DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8089276
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Reon Matemane & Tankiso Moloi & Michael Adelowotan, 2022. "Appraising Executive Compensation ESG-Based Indicators Using Analytical Hierarchical Process and Delphi Techniques," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kohnert, Dirk, 2024. "Money laundering and tax evasion : Do international measures have a significant impact in sub-Saharan Africa?," MPRA Paper 121354, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kohnert, Dirk, 2024. "Les mesures internationales contre le blanchiment d'argent et l'évasion fiscale, ont-elles un impact significatif en Afrique subsaharienne?," EconStor Preprints 300874, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ethical banking; ESG; International financial institutions; norm entrepreneur; commercial banks; Sub-Saharan Africa; post-colonialism; informal sector;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B55 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Social Economics
    • D25 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • F54 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - Colonialism; Imperialism; Postcolonialism
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • N17 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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