Socially responsible investment returns and news: Evidence from Asia

We set out in this study to examine (a) whether “socially responsible investment” (SRI) portfolios can outperform less-SRI portfolios in the emerging Asian stock markets and (b) whether investors within these emerging markets achieve awareness of SRI through publicly available news. On the basis of 2009–2013 data, we find that SRI portfolios tend to perform better in Japan. However, firms in the emerging Asian markets do not earn rewards for superior corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. We also find that investors in the emerging Asian markets are indeed aware of SRI through public CSR news releases; in particular, investors in these markets reward high environmental-, social-, and governance-rated firms for their good CSR practices advertised through such news releases, relative to those with no news releases.