Looking for sustainable development: Socially responsible mutual funds and the low-carbon economy

Sustainable investment responds to demands for carbon and climate-neutral societies. To address the urgency around climate change and provide investors with more qualified information, Morningstar has developed the Low Carbon Designation (LCD) to indicate that the companies held in a portfolio are in general alignment with the transition to a low-carbon economy. The designation is given to portfolios that have low carbon risk and fossil fuel exposure scores. The present study builds on the LCD by examining the relationship between these scores and financial performance. With this aim, we analyze 3920 socially responsible mutual funds from across the world. Results show differences in financial performance according to scores and investment areas. We find evidence that funds considered to have higher levels of sustainability achieved better performance than funds with higher exposure to companies involved in carbon and fossil fuel industries. We provide insights on the informativeness of these new scores with a focus on climate change and their relevance in helping investors to identify climate-aware funds. This study highlights the importance of introducing strategies to develop green finance; the analysis confirms that sustainability improves performance. Finally, the LCD indicator is shown to be relevant for making fairer comparisons among socially responsible funds and, ultimately, for developing low-carbon economies.     

Cross-border acquisitions from developing countries under decreasing returns to scale

Portuguese Economic Journal - We assume that a firm from a developing country wants to acquire a firm from a developed country with better technology. The acquirer, which may be a private firm or a...     

Innovation as a driver of eco‐innovation in the firm: An approach from the dynamic capabilities theory

The aim of this study is to investigate how innovative capabilities of the firm affect eco‐innovation from a dynamic capability lens. We build on OECD research to conceptualise eco‐innovation as the capacity with which firms modify, redesign, and create products, processes, procedures, and organisations in order to reduce environmental impact. We propose and test the temporal and relational properties of eco‐innovation as a capability. We demonstrate that eco‐innovation possesses two properties of innovative capabilities, namely, persistence over time and interrelation with other innovations. We thus shed new light on the mechanism through which firms engage in eco‐innovation. We also provide empirical evidence to the debate on the relationship between the “normal” innovation (technological or nontechnological) and eco‐innovation. We show that eco‐innovation and innovation are interrelated both simultaneously and sequentially. Moreover, we show that innovation capabilities and eco‐innovation are not only related, but they also have a complementary nature, which facilitates the development of future eco‐innovation.     

Sustainable development and circular economy: The role of institutional promotion on circular consumption and market competitiveness from a multistakeholder engagement approach

The transition from a linear economy to a circular economy (CE) is a real challenge to achieve long‐term sustainability. To push CE in the market, institutional promotion could become a key driver to positively impact both circular consumption and the competitiveness of the market. This paper analyzes the influence that soft and hard initiatives have on circular consumption and market competitiveness. Based on a survey of 1,281 respondents from different types of stakeholders, structural equations modeling statistical analysis was run. Results show that soft initiatives support the achievement of both objectives, whereas hard ones only influence greater circular consumption. However, the perception of the different stakeholders considered is very heterogeneous. It is indicative that not all institutional promotion initiatives are effective. Thus, institutions should guide, in an adequate and differentiated manner, their efforts to promote CE and sustainable development depending on the stakeholder they are targeting.     

What is digital possession and how to study it: a conversation with Russell Belk,Rebecca Mardon,Giana M. Eckhardt,Varala Maraj,Will Odom,Massimo Airoldi,Alessandro Caliandro,Mike Molesworth and Alessandro Gandini

ABSTRACT

The platformisation of digital consumption, means that increasingly many of the things that we call ours – our messages, photos, music, achievements – are entangled in complex socio-technical arrangements which require ongoing market mediation. In this context, refining our understanding of what digital possessions are and how to study them is vital. This requires refocusing research away from existing comparative analyses between digital and material possessions. To do so, we organised an interdisciplinary roundtable discussion with critical marketers and digital media scholars, consumer researchers, digital sociologists and researchers in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) at the 11^th Interpretive Consumer Research Conference held in Lyon in May 2019. The result of that discussion is this curation of comments which deal with theoretical, methodological and critical issues and a bold agenda for future research.     

绿色建筑材料在土木工程施工中的应用探析

伴随着城市化进程的加快,我国建筑规模也越来越大,随之而来的是对建筑工程绿色环保的要求不断提高.为了更好应对这一情况变化,更好迎合行业发展需求,我国建筑行业必须不断将绿色环保理念贯穿到实际施工中,推动建筑工程向可持续化和绿色环保方向发展,继而更好满足市场需求,实现产业的进一步优化和升级.在此背景下,本文在梳理整合大量材料基础上,就土木工程施工中绿色材料的应用展开讨论,并结合自身经验,对其在土木工程中的应用提出一些改进措施,旨在推进绿色材料的普及,更好为我国建筑行业发展贡献自己一份力量.     

Directed technical change and environmental quality

Portuguese Economic Journal - We propose a directed technical change model with two sectors, clean and dirty, to analyze the impact of the degree of substitutability between sectors and the degree...     

The zeno event: Science and the acceleration of history

It is commonly accepted that the scientific and technological revolution constantly increases its speed. There are a variety of indicators of this process, and an interesting, perhaps important, question is whether they tend to a common conclusion about the future of our society. In this study, we examine several such indicators, relating to both short- and long-term processes. We find that they all agree, predicting a sort of ‘Zeno event’ around the middle of the next century. This current investigation serves as a signal to those who wish to study the possibility of such a limit-event; its time-series can be tested again in the near future. If they are corroborated, this approach can serve as a well-validated warning, so that we may not merely study the world of the future but also transform it.     

An evaluation of the life cycle effects of minimum pensions on retirement behavior

In this paper we explore the effects of the minimum pension program on welfare and retirement in Spain. This is done with a stylized life cycle model which provides a convenient analytical characterization of optimal behavior. We use data from the Spanish Social Security to estimate the behavioral parameters of the model and then simulate the changes induced by the minimum pension in aggregate retirement patterns. The impact is substantial: there is a threefold increase in retirement at 60 (the age of first entitlement) with respect to the economy without minimum pensions, and total early retirement (before or at 60) is almost 50% larger. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.