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The study aims to contribute towards the sustainable development of financial systems, by testing the performance of socially responsible investing alternatives in emerging BRICS countries. The study outcomes give us an insight into viability of responsible financial decisions in contrast with the conventional style of investing.

The authors examine the performance of socially responsible indices of BRICS nations vis-à-vis respective conventional market indices using various risk-adjusted measures and conditional volatility measures. We further segregate the 12-year study period to crisis and non-crisis period particular to the respective country, as well as a common global financial crisis period to analyze the impact of market conditions in BRICS nations and observe the performance using dummy regression analysis. Conditional volatility of the stochastic index series is measured using ARCH-GARCH analysis. Fama Decomposition Model helps rank the index performance through the sub-periods.

Fama Decomposition Model helps us observe that while Brazil secures a position in top rankers consistently, it is India that ranks top during crisis period. With evidence of outperformance in terms of risk-return by SRI indices of BRICS countries through the overall period as well as through different market conditions, our study contributes to the positive literature on socially responsible investing.

The study explores performance of SRI in BRICS and finds evidence of the sustainable investment to be non-penalizing to the investor, even as the performance trend remain distinct in the countries with same level of development. It has implications for the investors and asset managers to include responsible stocks, while for the companies and regulatory bodies to unite for better reporting and disclosures. Given the broad implications, future research is required to link the impact of various cultural, legislative and demographic factors on the level and performance of the socially responsible investment in BRICS nations.

The current study evaluating and comparing performances of the socially responsible investments in BRICS nations puts forth following implications for the different sectors of the society, especially in emerging countries: (1) BRICS organization – The association of five economic giants, having significant influence over global as well as regional affairs, can aim to orient the countries' efforts towards collective sustainable development by designing uniform SRI framework. (2) Investors – In the globalization era, the investor can gain from ethical cross border investments to diversification and country benefits. (3) Companies and regulatory bodies – Only voluntary or mandatory unified efforts, to provide accurate and consistent disclosures, can upscale the mediocre growth trends of sustainable investing in emerging economies. (4) Asset Managers – Call of greater role in educating, warding off inhibitions related to RI.

This is to certify that the research paper submitted by us is an outcome of our independent and original work. We have duly acknowledged all the sources from which the ideas and extracts have been taken. The project is free from any plagiarism and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

Socially responsible investment (SRI) is a niche and upcoming investment strategy in India. Very few researches have been conducted on SRI in the Indian context. This study identifies the SRI awareness level, attitude towards the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, willingness to invest in SRI avenues and obstacles in SRI investment decision-making by Indian retail investors. The second objective was among the awareness, attitude, willingness, obstacle, and demographic constructs to identify the most significant variables that impact an individual investor's SRI decision in India. .

Data for the study have been collected through a self-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics are used to identify the importance of variables for individual investors. This paper used the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to understand the factors impacting individual investors' SRI behavior. Binary logistics regression analysis is used to recognize the variables that affect an individual investor's SRI decision.

The descriptive statistics indicate a low level of SRI awareness; the majority of the investors agreed that ESG issues are significant in investing and showed a willingness to invest in SRI avenues. However, the investors were not willing to accept lower returns from SRI. The majority of investors found, lower returns on SRIs, no tax benefit, lack of information about SRIs, and low liquidity as important obstacles in SRI investing. Binary logistics regression results indicated that awareness about SR/ESG indices, awareness about SR/ESG funds, and willingness to invest in SRI avenues significantly impact investors' SRI decisions but demographic variables have no significant impact on SRI decision-making.

This study has implications for the ethical/SR mutual funds managers, policymakers, government, and international asset management companies. The study finds an urgent need for increasing awareness about SRI among individual investors in India. The study suggests that the issuers must provide adequate information about SRI avenues and probable risk and returns involved in these, while the regulators must make efforts to educate investors in India.

The context of the present study is original because hardly any of the earlier studies conducted in India have tried to find out the individual investors' SRI awareness level, investors' willingness towards SRI, investors' attitude towards ESG issues, and obstacles faced by investors in socially responsible investing.

This study aims to explain how socially responsible investing (SRI) has evolved in the past few decades and sheds light on its latest developments. It describes different forms of SRI in the financial markets, and deliberates on the rationale for the utilization of positive and negative screenings of listed businesses and public organizations.

A comprehensive literature review suggests that the providers of financial capital are increasingly allocating funds toward positive impact and sustainable investments. Therefore, this descriptive paper provides a factual summary of the proliferation of SRI products in financial markets. Afterwards, it presents the opportunities and challenges facing the stakeholders of SRI.

This research presents a historic overview on the growth of SRI products in the financial services industry. It clarifies that the market for responsible investing has recently led to an increase in a number of stakeholders, including contractors, non-governmental organizations and research firms who are involved in the scrutinization of the businesses’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) behaviors.

This discursive contribution raises awareness on the screenings of positive impact and sustainable investments. The researcher contends that today’s socially responsible investors are increasingly analyzing the businesses’ non-financial performance, including their ESG credentials. In conclusion, this paper puts forward future research avenues in this promising field of study.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the performance of socially responsible stocks portfolio vis-à-vis portfolios of general companies in the Indian stock market.

The study has used absolute rate of return as well as various risk adjusted measures like Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Jensen’s α, Information ratio, Fama’s decomposition measure and dummy regression model to evaluate the performance of various portfolios.

Socially responsible stocks portfolios are found to have lower relative risk despite having higher systematic risk. Further the authors find that during crisis and post-crisis period, socially responsible stocks portfolio generated significantly higher return as compared to other portfolios in the Indian stock market. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) Index and GREENEX Index provided positive net selectivity returns in all the three sub periods, especially during crisis period. GREENEX and ESG outperformed NIFTY and SENSEX even on net selectivity basis. This indicates that the compromise made with respect to diversification by investing in socially responsible stocks portfolios was well rewarded in terms of higher returns in Indian context.

The findings lend support to the case of socially responsible investing (SRI) in India and are relevant for companies, regulators, policy makers and investors at large. Mutual funds and other investment funds should launch schemes which invest in socially responsible stocks so as to provide the benefits of SRI even to small investors in India.

The study contributes to the related literature by analysing the performance of socially responsible stocks portfolios in Indian stock market which is one of the emerging markets.

This study aims to test the serial mediation effect of attitude toward socially responsible investing (SRI) and social investing efficacy (SIE) on the relationship of knowledge about SRI with the intention to invest in SRI along with moderating effect of religiosity.

The study uses a quantitative analysis approach, wherein the data has been collected from 569 north Indian retail investors. Partial least square (PLS)-structural equation modeling has been applied in this study using the latest version of SmartPLS (v. 3.2.8) software to examine the complex model of serial and moderated mediation.

Attitude toward SRI and SIE significantly and serially mediate the relationship between knowledge about SRI and intention to invest in SRI. Also, the interaction effect of religiosity with knowledge about SRI is significant only for SIE and not for attitude toward SRI.

The study is cross-sectional in nature conducted only on the north Indian investors. Besides knowledge, there can be many other personal or social aspects that might affect SRI intention that have not been taken into the study.

The results suggested that the companies, financial advisors and governmental bodies can improvise upon social and environmental performance reporting so that investment in SRI can be promulgated.

The paper concludes that religious-minded people are more open to the idea of investing in SRI. India, being is a religious-minded country, the results of this study suggest that there is good potential for the development of SRI in India.

Empirical evidence regarding the relationship of SRI intention with its determinants is limited in Asian countries. Prior literature mainly provides evidence from developed countries where social and governance systems are comparatively stronger. The study provides evidence for the bright future of SRI in India, where investor’s beliefs are dominated by their religious values.

This study analyses the role of individuals' objective financial knowledge in shaping preferences for ethical intermediaries and sustainable investments in Italy. Another goal of this study is to assess the impact of individuals' misperceptions about their own financial knowledge and to test for gender-related differences in attitudes towards socially responsible investing (SRI).

Using nationally representative microdata from the Bank of Italy’s “Italian Literacy and Financial Competence Survey” (IACOFI), the authors use probit models, extended to account for potential endogeneity issues, to assess the causal effects of financial knowledge and confidence on stated preferences for SRI. Empirical models also allow to explicitly assess the moderating role of gender on the effects of financial knowledge and confidence on attitudes towards sustainable investing.

Results indicate that individuals' preferences for sustainable finance significantly increase with financial knowledge, suggesting that inadequate financial competencies represent a barrier to participation in SRI. At the same time, lack of confidence in one’s own financial knowledge significantly hampers attitudes towards sustainable investments. Furthermore, the authors show that women have a greater preference for sustainable finance than men and point out that financial knowledge and confidence exert heterogenous effects on attitudes towards SRI.

This study provides several contributions to the literature on SRI. First, the authors give evidence of the causal effect of financial knowledge on preferences for both ethical financial intermediaries and sustainable investments. Moreover, this is the first study to investigate the role of financial underconfidence bias in shaping individuals' SRI attitudes. Finally, extending previous research, the authors assess differences in SRI preferences between women and men and provide novel evidence on gender-related heterogeneity in the effects of financial knowledge and underconfidence.

Islamic finance and socially responsible investing (SRI) have been two of the most rapidly growing areas of finance over the last two decades. During this period, they have each grown at rates that far exceed that of the financial markets as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to find similarities and commonalities of both markets and identifies how both could benefit from each other.

The paper takes a comparative approach in comparing and contrasting two markets. The paper reviews the progress and driving forces in both markets and makes policy recommendations.

Islamic finance has grown at a very impressive rate over the last two decades, but the Islamic fixed income market remains under‐developed. SRI has become an increasingly common investment strategy during that same time period, but there is still insufficient supply of SRI fixed income instruments. The convergence of these two facts creates the opportunity for a fixed income product to be developed that could appeal to both SRI and Shariah (Islamic Law) compliant investors, and thereby serve as a bridge between the Islamic and conventional financial markets. The paper believes the product that could play this role is Sukuk for which the proceeds are used to fund economic development.

The paper takes a view from a financial expert's point of view which could be different from the scholars of Islamic legal system.

The paper provides an innovative view to two different markets and suggests that there are commonalities which need to be exploited for the benefit of both markets.

This is probably the first known attempt to related SRI financing to Islamic financing particularly Islamic capital markets.

This study aims to provide a precise understanding of how corporate sustainability information is used in socially responsible investing (SRI). The study is motivated by the lack of a recognised body of knowledge on this issue. This study, therefore, collates and reviews relevant studies (67 studies) to provide guidance to investors interested in SRI and identify a research agenda for academics desiring to contribute to this area.

This study conducts a systemic literature review employing recognised key words and searching the Web of Science. HistCite is utilised to ensure important cited studies are not missed from the collection. The review was conducted from two perspectives: (1) sources of sustainability information and (2) how the information is used in SRI.

The review identifies five major sources of sustainability information, including corporate reports, ESG ratings, industry affiliation, news and private communication with firms. These sources of information play different roles in the cross section of SRI strategies (i.e. negative and positive screening, active ownership and integration). This study provides guidance on how to use this information in SRI and provides recommendations for future research on how analysts interact with the information, how different informational characteristics impact implementation, ways to improve data quality, improvements to analysis methods and where data use needs to be extended into new strategies.

This review contributes to the SRI literature by inventorying studies of an important, yet omitted aspect, namely, sustainability information. This work also enriches the literature on corporate sustainability information by investigating how this information can be used for a specific purpose, namely, SRI. Given the increasing interest in SRI, this review will provide much-needed guidance for a range of practitioners, including investors and regulators.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the operating characteristics as well as risk and performance measures of all available self-proclaimed socially responsible funds (hereafter SRFs) in the USA over the ten-year (2007–2016) period. The first research question addressed is: Do SRFs perform as well as the average of all mutual funds in their respective categories? The second research question addressed is: Are SRF expense ratios correlated with fund performance?

This study analyzes all socially responsible equity mutual funds, as self-reported to Morningstar. This paper empirically compares operating characteristics and performance measures of SRFs relative to category averages in the US mutual fund industry. Operating characteristics include expense ratios and annual turnover rates. Performance measures include conventional return, risk and risk-adjusted return measures.

Although prior research suggests that socially responsible investing (SRI) indexes and SRI-friendly stocks have favorable returns, this study finds that these self-proclaimed SRFs underperform the average of all mutual funds in matched equity categories. However, this study demonstrates that a simple filter based on expense ratios can identify those SRFs that will enable investors to do quite well while doing good.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, the authors report that self-proclaimed SRFs, as a whole, have not generated competitive returns relative to other mutual funds in the same categories over the past ten years. This result contradicts the notion that socially responsible investors do not give up return performance when investing with their conscience. Second, the authors find that those SRFs with expense ratios in the lowest quartile of their respective category have significantly higher risk-adjusted returns and significantly lower turnover than category averages. Thus, by focusing on SRFs with low-expense ratios, socially responsible investors can do quite well while doing good.

Given the size and growing importance of socially responsible (SR)‐related funds and investments, the purpose of this paper is to see if those who invest in socially responsible investments (SRIs) conform to a particular profile and if that profile is significantly different than that of a typical investor.

This study surveyed a large group of US‐based, well‐informed, individual investors, members of the American Association of Individual Investors. The survey respondents included both those who invest according to SRI principles, and those with no interest in SRI, to determine if demographic differences exist.

The paper finds that the typical SR investor is female and more likely to be single, younger, less wealthy, and better educated than their non‐SR counterparts.

Further research is needed to determine if the higher risk aversion of women and their greater concern for the environment found in previous studies is responsible for the results.

Given the statistically significant differences, additional efforts must be made to convince wealthier and male investors of the merits of socially responsible investing.

This is the first paper to use individuals who have committed resources to SR to compare their demographic characteristics to investors who have not invested in SRI products as distinct groups. Second, this is the first study to compare these groups using US investor data and to measure the statistical significance of the demographic factors.