Cleansing Investor’s Conscience: The Effects of Incidental Guilt on Socially Responsible Investment Decisions
Victoria Gevorkova,
Ivan Sangiorgi,
Julia Vogt
Abstract:This paper explores the effects of incidental guilt on Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) decisions of retail investors. Do investors who feel guilty invest more in SRIs to clear their conscience? Are guilty investors willing to sacrifice returns to restore their moral selves? Using survey data from an online quasi-experiment among a sample of US retail investors, we find that individuals who experience incidental guilt are willing to invest more in SRI funds than those in a neutral state. We show that this… Show more
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