Investing in Socially Responsible Companies is a must for Public Pension Funds – Because there is no Better Alternative

>With assets of over US$1.0 trillion and growing, public pension funds in the United States have become a major force in the private sector through their holding of equity positions in large publicly traded corporations. More recently, these funds have been expanding their investment strategy by considering a corporations long-term risks on issues such as environmental protection, sustainability, and good corporate citizenship, and how these factors impact a companys long-term performance. Conventional wisdom argues that the fiduciary responsibility of the pension funds trustees must be solely focused on their beneficiaries and, therefore, their investment criteria must be based strictly on narrowly defined financial measures. It is also asserted that well-established financial measurements of corporate performance already include long-term risk assessment through discounted present value of future flow of earnings. Consequently, all other criteria are contrary to the best interest of the pension funds beneficiaries. In this paper, we assert that, contrary to conventional wisdom, pension funds, and for that matter other mutual funds, must be concerned with the long-term survival and growth of corporations. These measures are generally referred to socially responsible investing (SRI) and when applied to corporations, it is termed socially responsible corporate conduct (SRCC). We demonstrate that current measurement of future risk assessment invariably understates, and quite often completely overlooks, these long-term risks because of the inherent bias towards short-run on the part of financial intermediaries whose compensation depends greatly on short-term results. Furthermore, there is ample evidence to suggest that these intermediaries have been engaging in self-serving practices and thus failing in their duties to serve their clients, i.e. pension funds, best interests. Because of their large holdings in the total market as well as individual companies, these funds cannot easily divest from poorly performing companies without destabilizing the companies stock and overall markets. Hence, they must opt for a strategy of emphasizing investment criteria that encourage companies to take into account long-term aspects of their operations in terms of their impact on environment, sustainability, and community welfare, to name a few. We argue that an exclusionary, and even a primary, focus on short-term financial criteria is no longer a viable option. It also calls for the pension funds to encourage greater transparency and accountability of the entire corporate sector through improved corporate governance. Thus socially responsible investing practices are not merely discretionary and desirable activities; they are a necessary imperative, which both the corporations and public pension funds, and other large institutional holders, will ignore at serious peril to themselves. Finally, the paper considers some of the recent developments where corporations have been responding to these challenges and how their actions might be strengthened through greater disclosure and transparency of corporate activities. It also makes recommendations for the pension funds to support further research in creating new measurement standards that further refine the concept of socially responsible investing as a necessary ingredient of long-term corporate survival and growth in the context of a changing economic, environmental and socio-political dynamic.     

Access to Finance,Financial Development and Firm Ability to Export: Experience from Asia–Pacific Countries

With particular reference to Asia–Pacific countries, the present study examines how access to finance and financial development affects firms’ ability to enter export markets. Using firm‐level data from the World Bank Enterprises Survey, we found that access to finance plays a significant role in improving firms’ ability to export. In addition, development of the financial sector fosters export market entry. Among the financial development indicators, reach of the banking sector variable is most prominent. The present study suggests that improvements in access to finance and financial development (increases in the reach of the banking sector) enable firms operating away from capital or major cities to enter export markets easily. The present study supports policy intervention to strengthen access to the financial sector, which would encourage firms to export, and to facilitate export market entry for remotely located firms.     

A new‐institutionalist perspective on ISO 14000 and Responsible Care

This paper examines why US firms are lukewarm towards ISO 14000 while the US chemical industry has enthusiastically adopted Responsible Care. It also briefly explores why European and Asian firms are eagerly adopting ISO 14000. Employing a new‐institutionalist framework it argues that firms have incentives to adopt beyond‐compliance voluntary programs only if they perceive excludable benefits exceeding excludable costs. Institutions, the central conceptual pillar in a new‐institutionalist framework, are important in shaping perceptions of benefits and costs and the extent of their excludability. US regulators can encourage adoption of ISO 14000 by granting attorney–client privileges and enhancing levels of regulatory relief. Firms, in turn, need to appreciate the political constraints of the EPA on this issue. They could relax these constraints by addressing the apprehensions of EPA’s key constituents. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Exchange traded funds: leverage and liquidity

This paper examines the differences between leveraged and unleveraged Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), particularly for liquidity and volatility characteristics. The impact of leverage on intraday liquidity (spread and depth) is analysed in two periods – one of normal volatility and the other of abnormal/high volatility. There is a significant difference in spread and depth of leveraged and unleveraged ETFs in periods of both normal volatility and high volatility; however, this difference is more pronounced in higher volatility periods. In high volatility periods, liquidity typically diminishes in all ETFs, and this is even more so for the leveraged ETFs. When leveraged ETFs are segregated into multiples based on their power to replicate the underlying benchmark (i.e. multiples of ?3, ?2, ?1, 2, 3), the difference in spreads between normal and high volatility periods is typically larger. The double-leveraged ETF has the most significant difference between the positive and negative counter parts. However, the relationship in the progression of the multiples does not change linearly to correspond with the level of volatility. This may be due to the nonlinear relation between volume and volatility. We shed light on the magnification effect of financial leverage on microstructure of the ETFs.     

On the welfare benefits of an international currency

Is it beneficial for a country's currency to be used internationally? And, if so, can we quantify the benefit? Since the emergence of the euro, there has been great interest in the consequences of a transfer of the dollar's premier international role to the euro. This paper presents a novel model-based approach towards assessing the welfare benefits associated with the international use of a country's currency. Apart from the familiar benefits associated with seigniorage, residents of the issuing country experience an increase in the purchasing power of their currency both at home and abroad. In the calibration exercise carried out in this paper, we find the benefits of an international currency to be quantitatively significant. The welfare gain for the Euro area in having the euro internationally used ranges from 1.9% to 2.3% of consumption depending on relative inflation rates. The rest of the world is not indifferent as to which currency circulates as the dominant international currency. Conditional on their currency not being used internationally, their preference is for the dominant international currency to be the one with the lowest inflation rate.     

Does diversity matter? A fresh inquiry into the energy,economy and environment nexus

ABSTRACT

The article extends the literature on the nexus among economy, environment and energy by incorporating an index of electricity generation diversity in production and emission functions. The index is mathematically equivalent to Herfindahl–Hirschman index. The index captures substantial information regarding the ongoing energy transition at the global level. The results obtained through pooled mean group estimation, on a dataset of fairly diversified group of countries, indicate that if diversity index increases by a percentage point, per capita income increases by 2.4% and per capita emissions are reduced by 0.71%. This is against the conventional wisdom in favour of specialization. The study has found some interesting long-run causal pathways. Firstly, the causality runs from diversification to income. Secondly, there is a causality running from electricity consumption to specialization. Thirdly, bi-directional causality runs between emissions and specialization. The results have interesting policy implications. The study supports the growth hypothesis that the electricity consumption drives the economy. As this inevitably increases emissions, a better pathway is through diversification. The fossil fuel intensive pathway may have been the preferred choice in the past for countries with low electricity consumption; the diversified portfolio appears to be prudent in the future.