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This study aims to quantify the cost of rebalancing Sharīʿah-compliant indexes, both economically and statistically.

An empirical approach is employed where the rebalanced Sharīʿah-compliant index is calculated numerous times with different lags in rebalancing, and the number of stocks and their cost across time are determined in order to identify the optimal rebalancing frequency.

This paper finds that annual Sharīʿah rebalancing does not lead to significant differences in portfolio returns, even though it does bring some advantages in cumulative wealth starting from the third year onwards and brings about better risk-return characteristics measured in terms of the Sharpe ratio. However, these advantages involve an average annual shifting between 30 and 60% of the portfolio market capitalization, which would be costly at any level of transaction costs.

A private investor may be better off holding a constant portfolio and only rebalancing in three-year intervals since this was shown to possess similar portfolio returns and cumulative wealth results. Any advantages of annual rebalancing in terms of risk-return characteristics may be offset by transaction costs of rebalancing. Sharīʿah scholars and practitioners are to determine when the correct time for rebalancing really is, taking into consideration the cost of rebalancing vis-à-vis the advantages in cumulative wealth and risk-return characteristics of the portfolio.

Predictions that Islamic indexes will perform well during financial crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, miss the cost of frequent rebalancing. This paper addresses this issue in an empirical manner learning from the previous crisis in 2008.

The purpose of this paper is to examine socially responsible investment (SRI) fund performance and investigate the factors influencing fund performance.

The study uses return data from the Morningstar database for 152 SRI funds from January 1995 to May 2015. The initial analysis includes the use of various risk-adjusted performance measures, including Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Information ratio, Sortino ratio and M². The study also uses four factor models, including Jensen single-factor model, Fama–French three-factor model, Carhart four-factor model and Fama–French five-factor model to explain SRI fund returns. Finally, a cross-sectional regression analysis is applied to investigate the determinants of SRI fund returns.

The results show that, on average, the SRI funds provide comparable risk-adjusted returns relative to various benchmark market indices. Market factor is significant in explaining SRI fund returns. Examining each factor model, the results do not support Fama–French’s three-factor model as neither size nor value factor is significant. The author finds weak support for Carhart’s momentum factor along with the market factor. Finally, the Fama–French five-factor model shows market, size and operating profit factors explain SRI fund returns. The study also finds the fund performance is stronger for funds with the higher turnover ratio, the larger fund size and more managerial experience and lower for funds with higher expense ratio. Also, funds formed with negative screening perform better than positive or mixed screened funds.

SRI funds have received considerable attention from investors. This study contributes to the literature by examining SRI fund performance and investigating factors influencing their performance using multiple factor models and cross-sectional regression analysis. The findings are relevant for investors who demand responsible investment opportunities without sacrificing returns for nonfinancial screenings. Findings also suggest that investors should consider fund characteristics when selecting SRI funds.

This paper examines the effect of ESG ratings and its dimensions (environmental, social and governance) on the financial performance of JSE-listed firms included in FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index.

The paper employs panel data covering 40 JSE-listed firms included in FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index between 2015 and 2019. The paper employs the two-stage least squares (2SLS) instrumental variable regression technique to estimate the effect of ESG ratings and its dimensions (environmental, social and governance) on both accounting- and market-based performance indicators.

The results of the two-stage least squares instrumental estimation analysis reveal that investment in ESG initiatives improves both accounting- and market-based indicators of financial performance. Of the ESG pillars, the paper finds environmental initiatives improves firms' financial bottom line and market performance, while a firm's social and governance practices are observed to have no effect on a firm's accounting and market performance measures.

The insights from this study proffers policy implications for firms' management, investors and regulatory authorities.

As far as the authors are concerned, this paper presents the first empirical analysis on the contribution of ESG ratings on financial performance in South Africa.

This paper empirically investigates the performance of Islamic funds, which have been praised for weathering the 2008 financial storm relatively well and compares it to a European product designed to protect the most vulnerable of investors, UCITS funds.

This paper builds on 128 time-series regressions using various factor models to analyse the risk-return relationship of 242 Islamic and UCITS funds relative to a market benchmark, over a 10-year period starting January 2006, to capture severe bear and bull market conditions.

Islamic funds do not face a competitive disadvantage arising from their strict compliance with Sharīʿah principles, and their performance and investment style is relatively similar to UCITS schemes.

Islamic funds represent a low risk investment due to their very mild betas. Therefore, when forming part of a diversified portfolio, they can act as a hedging tool against adverse market movements.

Muslim investors are not punished relative to conventional retail investors when following their own beliefs. Other investors can consider Islamic funds in their portfolio allocation, especially those who seek socially and ethically responsible investments.

This paper fills a lacuna in the existing literature, because the sample is made up of Islamic funds established worldwide and includes not only equity, but also fixed income and mixed allocation funds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of portfolios that are constructed based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores and consist of stocks located in Europe and Turkey.

In order to form the portfolios, firstly all stocks are ranked in a descending way based on ESG-based (ESG, environmental, social and governance) scores, separately. Then, 10% of stocks with the highest scores are included in the “Top” portfolio and 10% of stocks with the lowest scores are included in “Bottom” portfolio and totally performance of eight portfolios are investigated. Finally, capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and Fama-French three-factor model are employed as performance measurement benchmarks.

Results obtained from CAPM regression show that using ESG-based scores two portfolios underperform the market index. The results of the three-factor model provide that performances of Bottom ESG and Bottom GOV portfolios outperform the market excess return by 0.57% and 0.53%. The overall findings of this paper indicate that there is no relationship between socially responsible investment (SRI) and portfolio performance. These findings are in line with the efficient market hypothesis which indicates all information is reflected in prices.

The aim of the study is to provide insight on the question of “whether SRI has any effect on the portfolio performance”. As far as the literature review is concerned it is seen that this study provide additional insight by utilizing a longer time span together with data from numerous markets.

This study investigates information flow of market constituents and global indices at multi-frequencies.

The study’s findings were obtained using the Improved Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (I-CEEMDAN)-based cluster analysis executed for Rényi effective transfer entropy (RETE).

The authors find that significant negative information flows among sustainability equities (SEs) and conventional equities (CEs) at most multi-frequencies, which exacerbates diversification benefits. The information flows are mostly bi-directional, highlighting the importance of stock markets' constituents and their global indices in portfolio construction.

The authors advocate that both SE and CE markets are mostly heterogeneous, revealing some levels of markets inefficiencies.

The empirical literature on CEs is replete with several dynamics, revealing their returns behaviour for diversification purposes, leaving very little to know about the returns behaviour of SE. Wherein, an avalanche of several initiatives on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) enjoin firms to operate socially responsible, but investors need to have a clear reason to remain sustainable into the foreseeable future period. Accordingly, the humble desire of investors is the formation of a well-diversified portfolio and would highly demand stocks to the extent that they form a reliable portfolio, especially, amid SEs and/or CEs.

本研究擬審查多頻率的及為市場成份的信息流和全球指數。

研究人員使用基於改良完全集合經驗模態分解自適應噪聲(Improved Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise)的聚類分析法,取得Rényi有效轉移熵,藉此得到研究結果。

我們發現、於大部份多頻率,在持續性股票和傳統股票間有顯著的負信息流動,這會增加多樣化的益處。這些信息流大部份是雙向的,這強調了股票市場成份及其全球指數在構建投資組合上的重要性。

我們認為持續性股票市場和傳統股票市場大多為異質市場,這顯示了市場的低效率,而且這低效率的程度頗大。

關於傳統股票的實證性文獻裡是充滿了變革動力的,這顯示了它們以多樣化為目的的回報行為。這使我們對關於持續性股票的回報行為、認識變得實在太少了。於此,大量的企業社會責任的新措施不斷提醒各公司、要本著企業社會責任的理念去營運;但投資者需清晰明白他們為何需在可見的將來保持可持續性。因此,他們卑微的願望是一個較好的多樣化投資組合得以形成,故此他們高度要求股票要有組成可靠投資組合的性質和能力,特別是在持續性股票和/或傳統股票當中。

The aim of the paper is to investigate the risk-hedging and/or safe haven properties of environmental, social and governance (ESG) index during the COVID-19 in China.

This paper employs the DCC, VCC, CCC as well as Newey–West estimator regression.

The findings provide empirical evidence of the risk hedging properties of ESG indexes as well as of the environmental, social and governance thematic indexes during the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. The results also support the superior risk hedging properties of ESG indexes over cryptocurrency. However, the authors do not find any safe haven properties of ESG, Bitcoin, gold and West Texas Intermediate (WTI).

The paper offers therefore, practical policy implications for asset managers, central bankers and investors suggesting the pandemic risk-hedging opportunities of ESG investments.

The study represents one of the first empirical contributions examining safe-haven and hedging properties of ESG indexes compared to traditional and innovative safe haven assets, during the eruption of the COVID-19 crisis.

This study aims to conduct an empirical investigation to assess the hedge, diversifier and safe-haven properties of different environmental, social and governance (ESG) assets (i.e. green bonds and ESG equity index) vis-à-vis conventional investments (namely, equity index, gold and commodities).

The authors examine the sample period 2007–2021 using the bivariate cross-quantilogram (CQG) analysis and a dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) experiment with several extensions.

The evidence shows that the analyzed ESG investments exhibit mainly diversifying features depending on the asset class taken as a reference, with some potential hedging/safe-haven qualities (for the green bond) in peculiar timespans. Therefore, the results suggest that investors might consider sustainable investing as a new measure of risk reduction, which has interesting implications for both portfolio allocation and policy design.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that empirically investigates at once the dependence between different ESG investments (i.e. equity and green bond) with different conventional investments such as gold, equity and commodity market indices over a large sample period (2007–2021). Well-suited methodologies like the bivariate CQG and the DCC multivariate GARCH are used to capture the spillover effect and the hedging/diversifying nature, even in temporary contexts. Finally, a global perspective is used.

This study aims to examine the potential effect that business ethics (BE) in general and corporate social responsibility (CSR) more specifically can exert on the voluntary disclosure (VD) of intellectual capital (IC) for the ethically most engaged firms in the world.

The research design is based on an inductive approach. As part of the global quantitative investigation, the authors have analyzed the impact of BE and CSR on the transparent communication of the IC. The data under analysis have been investigated using multiple linear regression.

Based on a sample of 83 enterprises emerging as the most ethical companies in the world, the results have revealed that the adoption of ethical and socially responsible approach is positively associated with the extent of VD about IC. This finding may help attenuating the asymmetry of information and the conflict of interest potentially arising with corporate partners. Hence, IC-VD may stand as an evidence of ethical and socially responsible behaviors.

Global and national regulators and policymakers can be involved by these results when setting social reporting standards because they suggest that institutional and/or cultural factors affect top management's social reporting behavior in the publication of the IC information.

Direct and indirect stakeholders, if supported by ethical and socially responsible behaviors of the company, could assess more in detail the quality of the disclosed information concerning the IC.

Most of the studies that have been conducted in this field have examined the effect of BE and CSR on the firm's overall transparency, neglecting their potential effect on IC disclosure. This study is designed to fill in this gap through testing the impact of ethical and socially responsible approaches specifically on IC-VD.

This study aims to analyse whether investment in green and sustainable stocks provide some cushion during current precarious time. To compare the impact of COVID-19 on the volatility of sustainable and market-capitalisation-based stocks, daily returns from Greenex, Carbonex, Large-Cap, Mid-Cap and Small-Cap index have been analysed over a period of six years from 2015 to 2021.

At the outset, logarithmic return of all selected indices has been tested for possible unit root and heteroscedastic. On confirmation of stationarity and heteroscedasticity of data, auto-regressive conditional heteroscedastic models have been applied. Thereafter, volatility is modelled through best suitable model as suggested by Akaike and Schwarz information criterions.

The findings indicate the positive impact of COVID-19 on the volatility of the indices. Asymmetric power ARCH model indicates highest significant impact of COVID-19 over the volatility of Large-Cap index, whereas exponential GARCH model detected highest significant impact of COVID-19 over the volatility of Mid-Cap Index.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is original in the sense that it aimed at comparing the possible impact of COVID-19 over sustainable and market-capitalisation-based indices.