The Sustainable Finance Landscape in Germany

This chapter discusses the current trend of mainstreaming sustainable finance in Germany. It provides an overview of contributions of different stakeholders to this trend and sheds light on the evolution of the sustainable finance landscape in Germany, including banks, the insurance sector, rating agencies, nonprofits, and academia. EU regulations are currently driving change and promoting sustainable finance in Germany. New policy initiatives and regulations are closely monitored and discussed by diverse stakeholders, including organisations with a long-standing expertise in promoting responsible and ethical investments. Advocacy-oriented nonprofits critically address greenwashing and engage in debates on qualitative aspects. The sustainable finance trend is expected to gain further traction in Germany.

Do Socially Responsible Investment Funds Sell Losses and Ride Gains? The Disposition Effect in SRI Funds

An increasing percentage of the total net assets under professional management is devoted to ethical investments. Socially responsible investment (SRI) funds have a dual objective: building an investment strategy based on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) screens and providing financial returns to investors. In the current study, we investigate whether this dual objective has an influence on the behavior of mutual fund managers in the realization of gains and losses. Evidence has shown that most investors in SRI funds invest in those funds primarily because of their social concerns. If the motivations of SRI managers align with those of SRI investors, SRI managers might then have more incentives than conventional managers to hold onto losing stocks if they feel their social value compensates for the economic loss. We hypothesize that SRI managers would be less prone to the disposition effect than conventional managers. Pertaining to the disposition effect, we do not find evidence of a difference in the behavior of SRI fund managers compared with that of conventional fund managers. Our results hold, even when considering market trends, management structure, gender, and prior performance.

From Open Data to “Grounded Openness”: Recursive Politics and Postcolonial Struggle in Hong Kong

This article maps the parameters of an emerging field of struggle around “openness” pertaining to digital data in the postcolonial smart city. Whereas colonial governance operated in relative secrecy with archives not quite available to ordinary citizens, what do we make of current institutions from government departments to banks flaunting their commitment to Open Data? Looking at data activism in Hong Kong, this article highlights the (post)colonial histories that have shaped the reception of Open Data in this context. More so, it explores the ways in which the techno-materialities of data infrastructures affect and reconfigure postcolonial struggle. Building on Kelty’s discussion of “recursive publics” and Hui’s account of recursivity, my notion of recursive politics underscores the mutuality of social history and techno-materiality. While recursive politics can contribute to technodiversity, I analyze how such politics weigh up against the political and ethical investments of postcolonial struggle.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Ethical Investments (EI) Research

This chapter presents the evolution of academic research in Ethical Investments (EI) research between 1990 and 2019. The chapter analyzes the most influential journals in EI research by searching for papers, which were published on the Scopus database. Results show a steadily increasing rate of EI research during the past 30 years. The chapter reports the top academic journals that permanently publish articles about EI research. The main contribution of this work is to develop a general overview of the leading journals in EI research, which leads to the development of a future research agenda for bibliometric analysis. The survey covers all main areas of Social Sciences, Business, Management and Accounting, Economics, Econometrics, and Finance as well as Decision Sciences and its connections with other analytical fields.

The Role of Sustainability in Brand Equity Value in the Financial Sector

The behavior of firms is changing as new kinds of businesses evolve. In particular, companies are now seeking to optimize their value, especially their intangible value—referred to as brand equity value—which has many behavioral drivers. The analysis of brand equity determinants in the financial sector (e.g., ethical investments, sustainability and firm behavior) has received little attention. The methodology used in this study included the collection of information from publicly listed companies, followed by the execution of a statistical analysis to study the correlations between brand equity values and their determinants. We aimed to close this gap by raising the awareness of the positive impacts of sustainable investments in the financial sector and the need for a managerial implementation model to build a sustainability-oriented brand value. The objective of this research was to examine the relationships between elements such as sustainability scores or diversity measures and firms’ brand value. Considering sectoral and regional effects, we observed a positive relationship between environmental and social governance scores and brand equity value.

Managing with Sharia: Strengthening Sharia Banking Spiritual Literation

The sharia banking main characteristics provide alternative systems by which banks and customers share profits with specific emphasis on fair treatment, ethical investments, and kinship relationship in the production process and avoidance of speculation. Measuring sharia banking performance by applying CAMELS is considered weak in describing non-financial aspects, which shows sharia ethics and the spirituality of sharia banking. Therefore, the ANGELS method can be considered as an alternative one in assessing sharia banking performance. This research applies Bayani, Burhan, and infant epistemological approaches. The result shows that the implementation of sharia principles in sharia banking practice in Makassar still need sharia literacy awareness among sharia banking practitioners since sharia banking is a potential market in the future.

RELIGION AND FINANCE

Despite the increasing attention to ethical investments, the empirical studies on Islamic indices are scarce. The principles of Islamic indices are similar to those of other ethical indices in terms of the screening process; both of them are also characterized by their short histories. So, after Islamic indices were introduced in the late nineties, many financial markets and index providers launched their own Islamic indices for investors looking for investment opportunities without compromising their beliefs. Analysing the financial performance of Islamic equity indices from all relevant providers, we document these indices to outperform their conventional benchmarks on a global and developed market level after controlling for investment styles and a potential back-testing bias. To explain this outperformance puzzle, we investigate fundamental (i.e., risk factors), behavioural (i.e., Ramadan) and research design (i.e., sample length) related explanations but the overall results persist. When eliminating the effect of the financial services industry from conventional benchmarks, however, the outperformance of all indices except the Dow Jones Islamic Market (DJIM) world index disappears. This implies that Islamic equity indices have outperformed due to their critical position towards risk-free interest and the financial services industry. We conclude that they represent a viable alternative for risk-averse passive investors, especially during periods of high uncertainty around financial services. Further research is needed to fully understand the abnormally good performance of the DJIM.