Can hedge funds benefit from corporate social responsibility investment?

Jun Duanmu, Qiping Huang, Yongjia Li and Garrett A. McBrayer

The Financial Review, 2021, vol. 56, issue 2, 251-278

Abstract: We explore the extent to which hedge funds incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) considerations in the development of their investment strategies. Using an asset‐weighted composite measure of CSR by fund, we examine the difference in financial performance between hedge funds with high CSR investment relative to those with low CSR investment and document no significant difference. Yet, we find that hedge funds increase their exposure to high‐CSR investments over our sample period, specifically postfinancial crisis. We find that the increases in CSR investment are associated with lower return volatilities in the future. Additionally, hedge funds with higher weighted CSR scores exhibit significantly lower risk factor loadings than funds with lower weighted CSR scores. Our results suggest that hedge funds are able to derive benefits by using CSR considerations as a form of risk mitigation in their investment policies.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.12261

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:finrev:v:56:y:2021:i:2:p:251-278

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0732-8516

Access Statistics for this article

The Financial Review is currently edited by Cynthia J. Campbell and Arnold R. Cowan

More articles in The Financial Review from Eastern Finance Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().