We analyze, and compare, performance and performance persistence of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds in Europe and North America. We use a broad sample of 500 European and 248 North American SRI funds for the period January 2001 -December 2011. We find that SRI funds outperform the market benchmark in Europe and North America over this period and that North American SRI funds perform better than European SRI funds. We find little evidence of performance persistence in either region using a ranked portfolio approach; however, there is more evidence of performance persistence in European SRI funds than in their North American counterparts using a non-parametric ranked portfolio approach.
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the market efficiency of socially responsible investment in Korea. The authors used the daily price of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Korea between January 2006 and December 2015.
Design/methodology/approach
To analyze the unpredictability of the returns, the authors conducted runs tests, such as the Dickey–Fuller test, the Philip–Perron test, the variance ratio test and autocorrelation tests. These tests investigate whether the future price of socially responsible investment in Korea is dependent on its previous price. If the relationship is dependent, this will violate the theory of weak form of efficient market hypothesis which explains that the past price movements and data do not affect stock prices. Therefore, investors cannot gain any abnormal return by extrapolating the historical data.
Findings
The results suggest that the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis is not valid for the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Korea. This implies that the future price of the index is correlated with past prices. Hence, the future movement of socially responsible investment in Korea can be predicted and enables socially responsible investors to gain abnormal returns.
Originality/value
This is the first study to investigate the market efficiency of socially responsible investment in Korea.
This study analyzes the market-timing skills of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) fund managers based in North America (US & Canada) and Europe. We use a broad sample of 248 North American and 500 European SRI funds during the January 2001-December 2011 period. Our result indicates that market-timing skills exist in both regions and SRI funds are attractive investment instruments. Nonetheless, North American SRI funds are more attractive than the European SRI funds because fund managers from North America possess superior stock selection abilities and market-timing skills.
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