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The purpose of this study is to examine the dynamic connectedness and volatility spillovers between commodities and corporations exhibiting the best environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices. In addition, the authors determine the optimal hedge ratios and portfolio weights for ESG and commodity investors and portfolio managers.

This study uses the novel frequency connectedness framework to point out volatility spillover between ESG indices covering the USA, developed and emerging markets and commodity indices, including energy (crude oil, natural gas and heating oil), industrial metals (aluminum, copper, zinc, nickel and lead) and precious metals (gold and silver) by using daily data between January 3, 2011 and May 26, 2021, covering significant socio-economic developments and the COVID-19 outbreak.

The results of this study suggest a total connectedness index at a mediocre level, mainly driven by the shocks creating uncertainty in the short term. And the results indicate that all ESG indices are net volatility transmitters, and all commodity indices other than crude oil and copper are net volatility receivers.

The results imply statistically significant hedging and portfolio diversification opportunities to investors and portfolio managers across the asset classes, proven by the hedging effectiveness analyses.

This study provides implications for policymakers focusing on the risk of contagion among the commodity and ESG markets during turbulent periods to ensure international financial stability.

This study contributes to the existing literature by differentiating ESG portfolios as the USA, developed and developing markets and examining dynamic connectedness and volatility spillovers between ESG portfolios and commodities with a different technique. This study also contributes by considering COVID-19 outbreak.

The paper examines how equity mutual funds manage their liquidity. Specifically, the authors investigate what strategies fund managers use to meet investor redemption demand, whether these strategies vary over time, whether different type of funds employ different liquidation practices in response to fund outflows, and whether liquidity strategies impact fund performance.

This study uses a sample of U.S. actively managed equity funds over the period 1990–2019. The authors use three different measures to capture funds' liquidity management practices. The authors examine the relationship between fund liquidity measures and net flow by estimating panel regressions over the entire sample period, on 2 sub-sample periods of different market conditions measured by the magnitude of implied market volatility (VIX), and on 2 sub-samples of funds with different liquidity profiles. The authors also examine the relationship between funds liquidity status and near-term performance through both a portfolio approach and regression analysis.

The authors find that on average, mutual funds reduce their cash position and the most liquid asset holdings to meet investor redemption demand. Furthermore, the authors find that fund managers choose different liquidity strategies under different market conditions. During highly volatile markets, mutual funds use cash and their most liquid assets to meet redemption demand while maintaining their portfolio liquidity. During low volatility markets, mutual funds rely heavily on cash but less on liquidity assets and tend to increase their portfolio illiquidity. Upon further examination of funds across portfolio liquidity profiles, the authors find that liquid funds increase portfolio liquidity when facing outflows, whereas illiquid funds maintain their portfolio liquidity position. The different liquidity strategies have significant impact on funds' near-term performance. Specifically, liquid funds underperform illiquid funds following the increase in their portfolio liquidity.

This paper contributes to the literature on liquidity management by asset managers by taking a holistic approach to examine funds liquidation practice at the portfolio holdings level. Considering the recent increase in market volatility, mutual fund liquidity management has drawn an increasing share of interest and attention from policy makers, investment professionals, and academia. This study covers both uncertain and stable market states during a long sample period and provides empirical evidence on the flow-induced liquidation decisions by equity mutual funds. In addition, this paper also contributes to the literature on mutual fund performance by providing evidence that funds' liquidity strategies significantly impact their near-term performance.

While an increasing number of investors value socially responsible investment practices, Bitcoin has faced criticism for its carbon footprint resulting from excessive mining power consumption. By examining Bitcoin’s interconnectedness with environmental, social and governance (ESG) equities, this study aims to construct a socially responsible investment strategy for cypto investors.

This study uses wavelet analysis and a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model to uncover the interdependence between ESG equities and Bitcoin. This study computes the optimal ratio, showing that Bitcoin significantly reduces portfolio risk when combined with green stocks.

The results show that co-movements between green stocks and Bitcoin are low, indicating that they are suitable combinations for portfolio diversification. From an environmental perspective, this investment strategy offers a theoretical solution to mitigate the negative impacts associated with Bitcoin mining. It aims to address the dilemma faced by sustainability-conscious investors, who must navigate the economic payoff of Bitcoin against their commitment to green investment principles.

The findings can provide valuable insights for policymakers seeking to develop strategies that promote sustainable investments among crypto investors.

Research on ethical investment practices in the cryptocurrency market remains in the early stages of development. Ethical investors can benefit from including Bitcoin in their ESG equity portfolios.

Political risk is an important determinant of portfolio returns. The basic purpose of this study is to revisit the importance of political risk in a constrained portfolio, namely, a Shariah-compliant equity portfolio (SCEP). Furthermore, the performance of such a constrained portfolio is also compared with a conventional portfolio that invests in all stocks.

The portfolios are constructed from stock-level data and invested in 61 international markets. The set of Shariah-compliant stocks is obtained with screening guidelines of Dow Jones Islamic Market indices. The weights of each constituent in both Shariah-compliant and conventional portfolios are driven by its relative exposure to political risk for the period 1996–2018.

Results show that, compared to conventional investors, Shariah-compliant investors gain substantial benefits when the allocation decision is based on political risk. A Shariah-compliant portfolio outperforms its conventional counterpart by 7.98% annually when tilted toward politically stable countries. The economic benefits further increase to 804 basis points when the portfolio allocates more funds to politically unstable countries. The tilted SCEP successfully reduces the downside risk, resulting in improved financial performance stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first effort of its nature to highlight the importance of political risk in the context of SCEPs.

Since 2008, bitcoin has continued to attract investors due to its growing capitalization and opportunity for speculation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of bitcoin (BTC) on gold, the volatility index (VIX) and the dollar index (USDX).

The series used are weekly and cover the period from January 2016 to November 2022. To generate the results, the unrestricted vector autoregression (VAR), structural vector autoregression (SVAR) and wavelet coherence were performed.

The findings are mixed as not all tests show the exact effects of BTC in the three asset classes. However, common to all the tests is the significant influence that BTC maintains on gold and vice versa. The positive shock in BTC significantly increases the gold prices, confirmed in three different tests. The effects on the VIX and USDX are still being determined, where in some tests, it appears to be influential while in others not.

BTC’s diversification potential with equity stocks and USDX makes it a valuable security for portfolio managers. Furthermore, regulatory authorities should consider that BTC is not an isolated phenomenon and can significantly influence other asset classes such as gold.

The purpose of this research is to primarily understand how crypto traders can use the Bitcoin as a hedge or safe haven asset to reduce their losses from crypto trading. The study also aims to provide insights to crypto investors (portfolio managers) who wish to maintain a crypto portfolio for the medium term and can use the Bitcoin to minimize their losses. The findings of this research can also be used by policymakers and regulators for accommodating the Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, considering its safe haven nature.

This study applies the cross-quantilogram (CQ) approach introduced by Han et al. (2016) to examine the safe-haven property of the Bitcoin against the other selected crypto assets. This method is robust for estimating bivariate volatility spillover between two markets given unusual distributions and extreme observations. The CQ method is capable of calculating the magnitude of the shock from one market to another under different quantiles. Additionally, this method is suitable for fat-tailed distributions. Finally, the method allows anticipating long lags to evaluate the strength of the relationship between two variables in terms of durations and directions simultaneously.

The Bitcoin acts as a weak safe haven asset for a majority of new crypto assets for the entire study period. These results hold even during greed and fear sentiments in the crypto market. The Bitcoin has the ability to protect crypto assets from sharp downturns in the crypto market and hence gives crypto traders some respite when trading in a highly volatile asset class.

This study is the first attempt to show how the Bitcoin can act as a true matriarch/patriarch for crypto assets and protect them during market turmoil. This study presents a clear and concise representation of this relationship via heatmaps constructed from CQ analysis, depicting the quantile dependence association between the Bitcoin and other crypto assets. The uniqueness of this study also lies in the fact that it assesses the protective properties of the Bitcoin not only for the entire sample period but also specifically during periods of greed and fear in the crypto market.

Over the past two decades, the topics of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have attracted an increasing amount of interest, reflecting a growing sensitivity of investors and corporations towards environmental, social and governance issues.

This survey offers an overview of the academic literature on ESG/CSR through the lens of investors, institutions and firms. We first discuss the definitions of ESG and CSR and their relationship to each other.

We next describe how ESG is measured and note problems with the measurement of and quality of ESG data and discrepancies between different measures of ESG. We then turn our attention to investors, examining what types of investors invest in ESG and the role of institutional investors in ESG. From the firm's perspective, we discuss why firms themselves conduct ESG. We also summarize the literature on the impact of ESG on firms: how ESG affects firms' financing, disclosure and reporting activities and firm performance. Finally, we describe other consequences of the focus of ESG and CSR on firms and investors.

This survey offers an overview of the academic literature on ESG/CSR through the lens of investors, institutions and firms.

This study aims to empirically investigate the linkages between digital trails of social signals (content and profile features of bitcoin-related tweets) and bitcoin price return using a VAR-BEKK-GARCH model.

Bitcoin-related tweets were collected every hour for six months from September 1, 2020, to February 29, 2021. The analysis involved two steps: first, examining tweet content, profiles, sentiment and emotions; and second, investigating the relationship between social signal volatility and hourly bitcoin price return.

Results indicate that bitcoin price changes can impact the sentiment expressed in tweets about bitcoin, and vice versa. While sadness exhibits a bidirectional volatility spillover with bitcoin, fear and anger display a one-period lag. Quartile analyses reveal that only fear in the second quartile shows a bidirectional spillover effect with bitcoin, while all other emotions except sadness demonstrate a unidirectional spillover effect in all remaining quartiles.

The study uses a novel two-step approach to analyze volatility spillovers between social signals and bitcoin price returns. Findings can guide investors and portfolio managers in making better allocation decisions and assist policymakers and regulators in reducing the adverse effects of bitcoin’s volatility on financial system stability.

The purposes of this study are to contribute to the limited green growth (GG) literature in emerging markets, to analyze GG from a financial economy perspective and to determine the contribution of financial development and innovation to GG in Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa and Türkiye (BRICS-T). BRICS-T countries significantly impact the world population, international politics, energy resources and economy. In addition, BRICS-T countries are one of the leading countries in the world with their sustainability efforts. Investigating the GG model in these countries may contribute to structuring emerging economies around the principles of GG and advancing global green transformation efforts.

The authors applied panel data analysis from 2001 to 2019. GG is economic growth free from environmental depletion in the model. National income, personnel expenditure and foreign direct investments are macroeconomic variables. These variables measure economic development and promote economic and social progress, which is essential for GG. Capital accumulation and innovation are essential tools in GG transformation. Therefore, financial development and patent applications represent the moderating variables. The authors estimate the fixed effect model with Parks-Kmenta robust.

Empirical results show that national income growth and foreign direct investments positively affect GG. Personnel expenditure negatively affects GG. On the contrary, financial development and patent growth have little moderating role.

This study contributes to the literature on creating a GG model in emerging countries. The study is original in its model and sample.

This study aims to examine the performance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) equity indices in Latin America (LA), evaluating their risk-return characteristics in comparison to conventional benchmark indices.

Using a quantitative empirical approach, the authors analyze ESG equity indices from Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia, employing metrics such as Sharpe, Sortino and Omega ratios to measure risk-adjusted returns. Regression analysis is employed to assess the replicability of ESG indices by benchmark indices. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to explore the potential increase in risk-adjusted returns when ESG equity indices are incorporated into portfolios.

The study addresses critical questions for investors: Can ESG indices outperform their benchmarks? Can these ESG indices be replicated by benchmark counterparts? Do ESG equity indices enhance portfolio diversification? The findings reveal that investing in ESG indices has the potential to enhance risk-adjusted returns and portfolio diversification.

While this study focuses on various LA economies, it’s important to note variations in currency and volatility.

For investors in LA, this study highlights the importance of considering ESG indices as part of their investment strategies. While not all ESG indices outperform conventional ones, some may improve diversification and risk-adjusted performance. Investors should carefully assess market-specific conditions and national factors when making investment decisions.

The primary contribution of this study is its focus on LA countries in the examination of diverse portfolios. The research provides valuable insights into the performance of ESG indices in this region compared to conventional benchmark indices. This approach addresses an important gap in the existing literature and offers a more comprehensive perspective on ESG investing and portfolio diversification.

Se examina el rendimiento de los índices-ESG en América Latina (AL), evaluando sus características de riesgo y retorno en comparación con los índices convencionales.

Utilizando un enfoque cuantitativo, analizamos los índices-ESG de Brasil, México, Chile, Perú y Colombia, empleando ratios de Sharpe, Sortino y Omega para medir los rendimientos ajustados al riesgo. Se utiliza análisis de regresión para evaluar la replicabilidad de los índices-ESG por parte de los índices de referencia. Se realizan simulaciones de Monte-Carlo para explorar el aumento en los rendimientos ajustados al riesgo cuando se incorporan los índices-ESG en las carteras.

El estudio aborda preguntas críticas: ¿Pueden los índices-ESG superar a sus índices de referencia? ¿Pueden estos índices-ESG ser replicados por sus contrapartes de referencia? ¿Mejoran los índices-ESG la diversificación de las carteras? Los hallazgos revelan que la inversión en índices-ESG tiene el potential de mejorar los rendimientos y la diversificación de las carteras de inversión.

Aunque este estudio se centra en diversas economías de AL, es importante tener en cuenta variaciones en moneda y volatilidad.

La principal contribución de este estudio radica en su enfoque en países de AL en el examen de carteras diversas; ofrece valiosos conocimientos sobre el rendimiento de los índices-ESG en esta región en comparación con los índices convencionales.