THE REDISTRIBUTIVE IMPACT OF ALTERNATIVE INCOME MAINTENANCE SCHEMES: A MICROSIMULATION STUDY USING SWISS DATA

Taking a benchmark scenario, the current situation in Switzerland, and using a microsimulation technique, we compare the effectiveness of various income maintenance schemes for reducing inequality and poverty. A full negative income tax allowance designed to eliminate poverty is shown to reduce income inequality most drastically. An integrated federal linear tax rate of 62 percent is required to make it viable. Aggregate work hours are reduced by approximately 10 percent and average disposable income falls by 9.3 percent under such circumstances. A participation income restricted to adults in employment and covering 50 percent of subsistence costs is however shown to result in an unambiguous social welfare improvement over the current situation in Switzerland.     

Financial performance of socially responsible investing (SRI): what have we learned? A meta‐analysis

With a meta‐analysis of 85 studies and 190 experiments, the authors test the relationship between socially responsible investing (SRI) and financial performance to determine whether including corporate social responsibility and ethical concerns in portfolio management is more profitable than conventional investment policies. The study also analyses the influence of researcher methodologies with respect to several dimensions of SRI (markets, financial performance measures, investment horizons, SRI thematic approaches, family investments and journal impact) on the effects identified. The results indicate that the consideration of corporate social responsibility in stock market portfolios is neither a weakness nor a strength compared with conventional investments; the heterogeneous results in prior studies largely reflect the SRI dimensions under study (e.g. thematic approach, investment horizon and data comparison method).