Socially Responsible Investing on a Global Basis: Mixing Money and Morality outside the U.S.

We examine fund ratings of socially responsible investing (SRI) equity funds in emerging and developed markets by validating the assumptions of the equally weighted U.S. News mutual fund scorecard and the causal interrelations among its rating agencies—Morningstar, Lipper, Zacks, CFRA and TheStreet—for improvement priorities. In so doing, we apply a novel interdisciplinary methodology including cluster analysis, classification analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling and importance performance analysis. We find evidence against the U.S. News assumptions, as individual rating agencies have unequal effects and exhibit the causal relationships among one another. We suggest emerging (developed) market fund managers allocate their resources—which are often limited—with the first priority to improving fund ratings of CFRA (Zacks), followed by Zacks (CFRA), TheStreet (Lipper), Lipper (Morningstar) and Morningstar (TheStreet). The positive causal relationships among rating agencies indicates that investors consider multiple rating agencies of the U.S. News for investment decisions, rather than simply use any single one of these rating agencies or their equally weighted aggregation. Interestingly, we find disagreement among rating agencies, with Zack (TheStreet) displaying rating deflation for emerging (developed) market funds. Disagreement among rating agencies may increase the monitoring effort of fund managers who usually “shop” for additional ratings in the hope of maximizing their average ratings.

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Understanding Socially Responsible Investing and Its Implications for Islamic Investment Industry

Journal of Emerging Economies and Islamic Research ◽

10.24191/jeeir.v7i1.6015 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Mohd Nizam Barom

Keyword(s):

Investment Decision ◽

Socially Responsible Investing ◽

Clear Understanding ◽

Socially Responsible ◽

Responsible Investment ◽

Developed Economies ◽

Responsible Investing ◽

Screening Strategies ◽

Investment Process ◽

Islamic Investment

Understanding Socially Responsible Investing and Its Implications for Islamic Investment Industry // // // // // Social, ethical and environmental concerns have been used as important consideration for investment decision by an increasing number of investors. This can be seen by the size and growth of the socially responsible investment (SRI) industry in the developed economies. At the same time, scholars and commentators of Islamic finance have also called for Islamic investment industry to learn from the experience of SRI in incorporating social responsibility issues in the investment process, in line with the ethical principles of Islam and the overall objective of the Shari’ah (Maqasid al-Shari’ah). This would require Islamic investment sector to have a clear understanding of the SRI industry in order to effectively benefit from its experience. This is particularly critical due to the significant diversity of investors and complexity in the issues and strategies adopted in the SRI industry. Hence, this paper adds to the Islamic investment literature by providing an extensive and systematic survey of SRI industry in terms of its (i) underlying motivations and values; (ii) issues of concerns; (iii) types of investors; and (iv) screening strategies. It then synthesizes these components within the context of the ‘value-based’ investors. This synthesized framework offers a useful tool for Islamic investment practitioners to understand the theoretical and practical aspects of SRI. Subsequently, the paper highlights important implications of the findings for Islamic investment industry in terms of the issues that it needs to consider in emulating SRI practices and a number of lessons that it can learn from the SRI experience.

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