The performance of socially responsible equity mutual funds: Evidence from Sweden

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of socially responsible (SR) funds in Sweden by assessing fund managers' abilities and performances across different market states. These issues are analyzed at the aggregate and individual fund levels. The paper also presents several new statistical tests that allow more precise inferences about differences in performance and the variability in fund returns arising from different benchmarks. In general, SR and conventional funds perform similarly to the market. At the aggregate level, SR funds investing in Sweden and Europe perform similarly to conventional funds, while those investing globally tend to underperform. This underperformance seems to be linked with poor selectivity abilities of global SR fund managers. For individual funds, the performance of both types of funds is more similar. Most funds perform similarly in crisis periods compared to non‐crisis periods. Overall, our results are consistent with a mature market for SR investing and support the view that the similar performance of SR and conventional funds is associated with the mainstreaming of SR investment in Sweden. These findings encourage SR investing both by socially conscious investors, who wish to align their social values with their investment decisions, as well as by conventional investors, who will not be penalized by investing in these funds. We also call attention to the difficulties investors face when trying to identify funds with high social standards, considering that there is scarce information on the extent to which each fund (SR or conventional) holds stocks that comply with ethical and social criteria.     

Effective Paths for Consumer Empowerment and Protection in Retail Energy Markets

Consumer empowerment and protection are frequently discussed in contemporary energy policy debates. The process of consumer empowerment through information and consumer education has great potential, yet consumer switching as the concomitant outcome of this process remains low. Additional protection for vulnerable consumers is called for. This article is centred on the path to achieving consumer empowerment and protection. In particular, it stresses that empowerment should be viewed as a long-term process. Regulators should not focus on the mere outcome of switching and adopt remedies aimed at changing consumer behaviour in the short term. The discussion highlights how attempts to protect vulnerable consumers through an ancillary application of competition law distort the competitive process and should be avoided. Personal vulnerabilities, such as low income, can be better tackled with targeted social policy measures, whereas instances of vulnerabilities pertaining to the market context, such as difficulties in assessing different energy offers, are better phased out through the market mechanism.     

The deterrent effects of the penalty points system for driving offences: a regression discontinuity approach

Using data on road accidents, traffic fatalities and driving offences taking place in Italy over the period 2001–2005, we estimate the effects of the introduction on July 2003 of a penalty points system for driving offences. To identify the causal effect of the penalty points system (PPS) on road safety we use a regression discontinuity design. It emerges that, controlling for weather conditions, police patrols, speed cameras, gasoline price, unemployment rate, the introduction of the PPS has led to a reduction of about 9 % of road accidents and of about 30 % of traffic fatalities. These findings are robust to different specifications of the model and different time windows. Moreover, it emerges that the driving offences for which the introduction of the new regime has determined a sharp change in the sanction scheme have reacted more than offences for which the change was less relevant.     

The Impact of Technical Change and Profit on Investment in Australian Manufacturing

This paper combines W.E.G. Salter's analysis of capital-embodied technical change with Kalecki's analysis of financing investment from retained profits to provide a Post Keynesian model of investment with process innovation, which is applied to data from Australian manufacturing industries. The approach to process innovation taken in this study is to identify new capital stock introduced through physical investment, which results in the older vintage stock being decommissioned as technologically obsolete. In the estimated model, the profit factor is used as a measure of the ability to invest, and the rate of labour productivity growth factor reveals the inducement to invest as this rate acts as a proxy for technical change in the Kaleckian investment-ordering model. The two factors combine to explain the accumulation process, both level and variability, and its link to technical change. In conclusion, this paper demonstrates that investment, incorporating technical change, enables industries to become sustainable into the uncertain future with varying states of investment instability.

…technical progress cannot be regarded as automatic and independent of accumulation. (Salter, 1966, p. 72)     

Public service motivation and organizational citizenship

This paper investigates the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and employee performance by adopting a notion of performance which incorporates extra-role behaviours, such as the propensity to engage in unpaid overtime, organizational citizenship behaviours, absenteeism and organizational deviance. It does so in an underexplored part of the public sector, namely prisons. As well as providing new explanatory mechanisms for understanding the outcomes of PSM behaviour and exposing the dark side of PSM, this paper contributes to debates about the significance of PSM and the consequences of its absence.     

Can group identity explain the gender gap in the recruitment process?

Despite evidence that the gender gap in the labour market favours men, aggregate findings from correspondence studies show that women are more likely than men to be invited for a job interview. We hypothesize that the predominance of women among recruiters may explain this somewhat puzzling finding; recruiters may favour applicants of their own gender. We use the data from a large-scale correspondence study to test this hypothesis. As expected, we find that female applicants are more likely to receive callbacks for interview. We also see that in our sample the majority of contact persons responsible for the recruitment process are female. More importantly, we find that if recruiter and applicant are of the same gender, then the likelihood that the applicant will be invited for an interview increases. These findings reveal the gender favouritism at the selection stage in the labour market.     

Hard and soft law approaches to addressing psychosocial risks in Europe: lessons learned in the development of the Italian approach

Psychosocial risks in the workplace have been identified as some of the most significant emerging risks, particularly since issues such as work-related stress, which is closely linked to psychosocial risks, are widely recognised as major challenges in modern occupational safety and health. This paper presents the policy framework and key initiatives that have been implemented for the management of psychosocial risks in the workplace in Europe. It discusses several approaches and initiatives, both from a hard and soft law perspective, that have been implemented at European Union and national level. Within this context, it discusses the key issues that pertain to the development of national approaches, focussing as an example on the Management Standards for work-related stress developed in the UK and their recent adaptation in Italy. The Italian approach is discussed in detail as an example that may highlight key process elements in the development of psychosocial risk management policies, and promote good practice in this area through lessons learned. It is concluded that it is more pressing now than ever for a critical evaluation of efforts employed so far to address psychosocial risks to be conducted, and an approach at European level to be developed that will allow both flexibility and a certain level of benchmarking across members states. Such an approach can be supported by European bodies, responsible for surveillance and promotion of good practice, working in collaboration with similar national bodies.     

The conditional performance of US mutual funds over different market regimes: do different types of ethical screens matter?

We investigate the performance of US mutual funds that employ different ethical criteria: religious, socially responsible, and irresponsible. Performance is evaluated over different market regimes using a Markov-switching conditional CAPM approach that endogenously defines different states of the market. This model is also extended to a multifactor context. The results show that estimates of performance vary across different market regimes. The Vice Fund, which invests in unethical firms, outperforms in low-volatility regimes, but underperforms in high-volatility regimes. These results contradict the Vice Fund’s claim that it constitutes a “solid investment during recessionary periods”. Our results show that socially responsible and morally responsible funds exhibit different performance across different market conditions, thereby supporting the use of performance evaluation models that take into account different market regimes. Overall, different types of ethical screens seem to lead to different performance patterns across different market regimes.     

Drivers of environmental innovation in Majorcan hotels

Using a database of Majorcan hotels, this paper examines several previously untested determinants of environmental innovations in hotels derived from the Porter hypothesis and from the specifics of knowledge transfer in the tourism industry. The empirical analysis is original in that it distinguishes between eight types of environmental innovations. The results show that hotels’ general predisposition to implement innovations, manager remuneration based on environmental performance, staff satisfaction, environmental accounting, and trainings are important determinants of the overall environmental innovation activity of Majorcan hotels. Moreover, the use of environmental management systems is associated with innovations with cost-saving potential, whereas the hotel star category is associated with innovations that contribute to hotel quality, such as wastewater treatment, noise reduction, noise isolation, and visual impact improvements. Furthermore, high levels of staff satisfaction are related to the implementation of water-saving and noise reduction innovations, as such innovations require staff participation, whereas the role of information sources in explaining innovation adoption varies based on the technical complexity of innovations. The paper concludes with policy implications for sustainable tourism development, recommendations for the hoteliers, and directions for future research.