Purpose: 14x new interesting research on free data, AI, biodiversity, gender gaps, purpose and ESG washing, geodata, shareholder engagement, financial education, ETFs, private equity and asset allocation (# shows SSRN downloads as of Oct. 26th, 2023)
Social and ecological research (Purpose)
Much (free) data: A Compendium of Data Sources for Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence by Paul Bilokon, Oleksandr Bilokon, and Saeed Amen from Thalesians as of Sept. 12th, 2023 (#942): “… compendium – of data sources across multiple areas of applications, including finance and economics, legal (laws and regulations), life sciences (medicine and drug discovery), news sentiment and social media, retail and ecommerce, satellite imagery, and shipping and logistics, and sports”. My comment: My skeptical view on big data see Big Data und Machine Learning verschlechtern die Anlageperformance und Small Data ist attraktiv from 2018 and more recently How can sustainable investors benefit from artificial intelligence? – GITEX Impact – Leading ESG Event 2023
Unclear AI-Labor relation: Labor Market Exposure to AI: Cross-country Differences and Distributional Implications by Carlo Pizzinelli, Augustus Panton, Marina M. Tavares, Mauro Cazzaniga, Longji Li from the IMF as of Oct. 6th,2023 (#5): “…. a detailed cross-country analysis encompassing both Advanced Economies (AEs) and Emerging Markets (EMs) … high-skill occupations that are more prevalent in AEs, despite being more exposed, can also greatly benefit from AI. Overall, AEs have more employment than EMs in exposed occupations at both ends of the complementarity spectrum. This finding suggests that AEs may expect a more polarized impact of AI on the labor market and are thus poised to face greater risk of labor substitution but also greater benefits for productivity” (p. 31/32).
Pay for biodiversity? Revealing preferences for urban biodiversity as an environmental good by Leonie Ratzke as of Oct. 25th, 2022 (#26): “… relatively little research on urban dwellers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for urban biodiversity exists. … using a revealed preference approach based on a real estate dataset comprising around 140,000 unique entries of rental and sales transactions of apartments. I find that WTP for biodiversity is exclusively positive and economically relevant” (abstract).
Insurance gender issues: Gender-inclusive Financial and Demographic Literacy: Lessons from the Empirical Evidence by Giovanna Apicella, Enrico G. De Giorgi, Emilia Di Lorenzo, and Marilena Sibillo as of Jan. 24th, 2023 (#104): “Consistent empirical evidence shows that women have historically experienced lower mortality rates than men. In this paper, we study a measure of the gender gap in mortality rates, we call “Gender Gap Ratio” … The evidence we provide about a Gender Gap Ratio that ranges between 1.5 and 2.5, depending on age and country, translate into a significant reduction of up to 25% in the benefits from a temporary life annuity contract for women with respect to men, against the same amount invested in the annuity. The empirical evidence discussed in this paper documents the crucial importance of working towards a more widespread demographic literacy, e.g., a range of tools and strategies to raise longevity consciousness among individuals and policy makers, in the framework of gender equality policies“ (abstract).
Corporate purpose: Sustainability Through Corporate Purpose: A New Framework for the Board of Directors by Mathieu Blanc and Jean-Luc Chenaux as of July 27th, 2023 (#106): “The definition and implementation of a corporate purpose is the most appropriate process for the board of directors and management to achieve a sustainable as well as profitable business activity, which necessarily encompasses economic, social and environmental components. The corporate purpose statement offers guidance to the managing bodies of a company to determine the necessary and difficult trade-offs between the different stakeholders and set priorities in the long-term interest of the company. In our opinion, this concept is most likely the best tool to reconcile society with business activities and remind shareholders, business leaders, customers and employees that what unites them for the development of society is much stronger that what divides them“ (p. 32). My comment: My corporate purpose is very simple: Offer liquid investment portfolios that are as sustainable as possible.
Purpose-washing? Putting Social Purpose into Your Business by Philip Mirvis of the Babson Institute for Social innovation as of Oct. 15th, 2023 (#9): “… there’s a massive “purpose gap”—large majorities of companies have purportedly proclaimed their purpose but it has not been built into their business and is either unknown to or doubted by their employees and customers. Who get this right? The research reports on how Ben & Jerry’s, Nike, Novo Nordisk, PepsiCo, and Unilever developed and implemented a “social purpose”—a pledge to address serious social problems their business operations, products, partnerships, and social issue campaigns” (abstract).
Responsible investment research (Purpose)
Costly ESG washing: When Non-Materiality is Material: Impact of ESG Emphasis on Firm Value by Sonam Singh, Ashwin V. Malshe, Yakov Bart, and Serguei Netessine as of Oct. 18th, 2023 (#63): “ESG factors are nonmaterial (material) when excluding them from corporate disclosure would not (would) significantly alter the overall information available to a reasonable investor. Using a deep learning model to earnings call transcripts of 6,730 firms from 2005 to 2021 to measure ESG emphasis the authors estimate panel data models for testing this framework. The analysis reveals a 1% increase in nonmaterial ESG emphasis decreases firm value by .30%. This negative impact on firm value is 2.12 times higher than the positive impact of material ESG emphasis. Furthermore, the negative impact of nonmaterial ESG emphasis on firm value grows over time and is more pronounced in regulated industries“ (abstract).
Geodata for ESG: Breaking the ESG rating divergence: an open geospatial framework for environmental scores by Cristian Rossi, Justin G D Byrne, and Christophe Christiaen as of Oct. 19th, 2023 (#20): “… geospatial datasets offer ESG analysts and rating agencies the ability to verify claims of company reported data, to fill in gaps where none is otherwise reported or available, or to provide new types of data that companies would not be able to provide themselves. Free to use geospatial datasets that have broad geographic coverage exist, and some are updated over time. … This paper has proposed a novel framework … to mitigate the reported divergence in ESG scores by using consistent and trusted geospatial data for environmental impact analysis at the physical asset level“ (p. 19).
Green owner success: Divestment and Engagement: The Effect of Green Investors on Corporate Carbon Emissions by Matthew E. Kahn, John Matsusaka, and Chong Shu as of Oct. 13th, 2023 (#72): “We focus on public pension funds, classifying them as green or non-green based on which political party controlled the fund. … Our main finding is that companies reduced their greenhouse gas emissions when stock ownership by green funds increased and did not alter their emissions when ownership by non-green funds changed. We find evidence that ownership and constructive engagement was more effective than confrontational tactics such as voting or shareholder proposals. We do not find that companies with green investors were more likely to sell off their polluting facilities (greenwashing). Overall, our findings suggest that (a) corporate managers respond to the environmental preferences of their investors; (b) divestment in polluting companies may be counterproductive, leading to greater emissions; and (c) private markets may be able to address environmental challenges without explicit government regulation“ (abstract). My comment: My shareholder and stakeholder engagement approach is documented here Shareholder engagement: 21 science based theses and an action plan – (prof-soehnholz.com)
Political Private Equity: ESG Disclosures in Private Equity Fund Prospectuses and Fundraising Outcomes by John L. Campbell, Owen Davidson, Paul Mason, and Steven Utke as of Sept. 9th, 2023 (#105): “We use a large language model to identify Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures in private equity (PE) brochures (Form ADV Part 2) … First, we find environmental, but not social or governance, disclosures are negatively associated with the likelihood a PE adviser raises a new fund. Second, using disclosure tone, we separately identify disclosures of ESG risk from disclosures of ESG related investment activity. We find environmental risk disclosure is negatively associated with new fund formation. In contrast, the effect of environmental investment disclosure is positive or negative depending on the political leaning of investors home state” (abstract).
Other investment research
Literate delegation: Household portfolios and financial literacy: The flight to delegation by Sarah Brown, Alexandros Kontonikas, Alberto Montagnoli, Harry Pickard, and Karl Taylor as of Oct. 17th, 2023 (#6): “ … we analyse the asset allocation of European households, focusing on developments during the period that followed the recent twin financial crises. … We provide novel evidence which suggests that the “search for yield” during the post-crisis period of low interest rates took place not by raising the direct holdings of stocks and bonds, but rather indirectly through higher mutual funds’ holdings, in line with a “flight to delegation”. Importantly, this behaviour is strongly linked to the level of financial literacy, with the most literate households displaying significantly higher use of mutual funds“ (abstract).
Fin-Ed returns: Selection into Financial Education and Effects on Portfolio Choice by Irina Gemmo, Pierre-Carl Michaud, and Olivia S. Mitchell as of Sept. 25th, 2023 (#34): “The more financially literate and those expecting higher gains pay more to purchase education, while those who consider themselves very financially literate pay less. Using portfolio allocation tasks, we show that the financial education increases portfolio efficiency and welfare by almost 20 and 3 percentage points, respectively. In our setting, selection does not greatly influence estimated program effects, comparing those participating and those who do not“ (abstract). My comment: I try to contribute to B2B financial literacy with (free) www.prof-soehnholz.com
Passive problems: Passive Investing and Market Quality by Philipp Höfler, Christian Schlag, and Maik Schmeling as of Oct. 5th, 2023 (#127): “We show that an increase in passive exchange-traded fund (ETF) ownership leads to stronger and more persistent return reversals. … we further show that more passive ownership causes higher bid-ask spreads, more exposure to aggregate liquidity shocks, more idiosyncratic volatility and higher tail risk. We … show that higher passive ETF ownership reduces the importance of firm-specific information for returns but increases the importance of transitory noise and a firm’s exposure to market-wide sentiment shocks” (abstract).
New allocation model: The CAPM, APT, and PAPM by Thomas M. Idzorek, Paul D. Kaplan, and Roger G. Ibbotson as of Sept. 9th, 2023 (#114): “Important insights and conclusions include: In the CAPM, there is only one “taste” and that is a single dimension of risk aversion. The CAPM assumes homogeneous expectations, so there is no “disagreement”. Both the APT and the PAPM have a linear structure, but in the APT an unknown factor structure is supplied by the economy, whereas in the PAPM the structure arises out of the investor demand for security characteristics, which need not be risk based. … The PAPM with “disagreement” leads to mispricing, inefficient markets, and the potential for active management. The CAPM, as well as a number of new ESG equilibrium asset pricing models, are special cases of the PAPM, which allows for any number of tastes for any number of characteristics and disagreement“ (p. 25). My comment: I prefer a much simpler and optimization-free passive asset allocation see 230720 Das Soehnholz ESG und SDG Portfoliobuch
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Liquid impact advert for German investors
Sponsor my research by investing in and/or recommending my global small/midcap mutual fund (SFDR Art. 9). The fund focuses on social SDGs and uses separate E, S and G best-in-universe minimum ratings and broad shareholder engagement with currently 28 of 30 companies: FutureVest Equity Sustainable Development Goals R – DE000A2P37T6 – A2P37T or Noch eine Fondsboutique? – Responsible Investment Research Blog (prof-soehnholz.com)