The Financial Performance of a Socially Responsible Investment Over Time and a Possible Link with Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper empirically examines the financial performance of a UK unit trust that was initially “conventional” and later adopted socially responsible investment (SRI) principles (ethical investment principles). Comparison is made with three similar conventional funds whose investment objectives remained unchanged. Analysis techniques employed in previous studies find similar results: mean risk-adjusted performance is unchanged by the switch to SRI, with no evidence of over-or under-performance relative to the benchmark market index by any of the four funds. More interestingly, changes in variability of returns over time are also modelled using generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models, not previously applied to SRI funds so far as is known. Results show a temporary increase in variability of returns, followed by a return to previous levels after around 4 years. Evidence shows the increased variability to be associated with the adoption of SRI rather than with a change in fund management. Possible explanations for the subsequent reduction in variability include the spread of corporate social responsibility activities by firms and learning by fund managers. In addition to reporting on a previously unobserved phenomenon, this paper raises questions for further research.     

Social Embeddedness in Electronic Negotiations

This study contributes to electronic negotiation research by analyzing the role of social embeddedness of actors in a controlled laboratory experiment. In particular, we analyze the effect of prior negotiator relationship in different conflict levels in web-based negotiations. We hypothesize that with increasing intensity of conflicts, negotiators who have a personal relationship use more value creating strategies compared to anonymous negotiators. As a consequence, we also hypothesize to find fewer impasses in electronic negotiations involving subjects who are socially embedded. Our results confirm that, in fact, in severe conflicts socially embedded actors reach significantly more agreements than subjects of the control group while such an effect is not found in weak conflict situations. These findings are related to more yielding between embedded actors but not to more value creating behavior. From these results, we can conclude that socially embedded negotiators better manage to reach agreements in difficult situations. Furthermore, an institutionalized pre-negotiation phase which allows negotiators to establish a personal relationship can counteract the threat of impasses.     

Understanding postorganic fresh fruit and vegetable consumers at participatory farmers’ markets in Ireland: reflexivity,trust and social movements

This paper examines how trusting relations between consumers and vendors of organic fresh fruits and vegetables (FFVs) in a particular type of farmers’ market (FM) in Ireland are established and maintained, and what the implications of this are. First, the food system is outlined, and then its attendant problems. These problems have led to various solutions, two of which are organic food and FMs. Then, the growth in these two areas is outlined, as is the accompanying growth in the academic literature on these two areas, some of which overlaps. Various pressures, including in particular the increasing distance food travels and disconnected stallholders and products at the FM, are suggested. In light of this, a need to apply an understanding of the reflexive consumer, trust and social movements is suggested. It is found that the consumers interviewed act reflexively by choosing to go to these FMs. They prioritize the trusting relationships built up through repeated personal contact at these FMs over and above organic certification. Along with and as part of this, they prioritize local, fresh, seasonal ‘chemical‐free’ FFVs over and above imported certified organic produce. Various aspects of collective identity formation, including modes of behaviour, objects and stories, and language, are involved in this process. These elements, to some extent, act as a buffer against the pressures of distance and disconnection. Along with this, the essential meaning of the word organic is, in this particular context, reconstructed to include various socio‐environmental values missing from some certified organic produce. The word postorganic is suggested. The main methodologies used are semistructured in‐depth interviews and participant observation.     

社会统筹养老金供给的两难困境与政策选择

在中国养老保险制度建立与完善过程中,其主要矛盾仍然是如何筹资和如何给付的问题。社会统筹主要通过提高缴费率和扩大覆盖面两条途径来增加基金供给,而现行制度却面临着养老金供给的两难困境。一是提高缴费率增加了基金收入,但不利于经济增长与扩大覆盖面;二是不同群体实行差别费率有利于扩大覆盖面,但加剧了养老金收支的失衡。经数理模型与实证分析,社会统筹缴费率应该保持适度水平,同时应该对不同群体实行差别费率的政策进行调整,以建立养老保障的长效机制。     

Social Investing: Mainstream or Backwater?

Social investing, though not yet fully mainstream, has the potential to obtain such status. Questions relating to the future of social investing include the following. (1) What properly falls within the ambit of social investing? Assuming that no single definition of social responsibility is feasible, what then are the limits? (2) What do we need to know about investor psychology concerning social investing? What motivates people to buy socially screened investments and why do they sometimes act inconsistently? (3) How can we improve the measures of social performance? Is it possible to develop GAAP and GAAS equivalents for social reporting? (4) Should social reports by firms be audited? If so, how? (5) What sorts of public policies are necessary to support the social screening of investments?     

CEO Incentives and Corporate Social Performance

This paper examines the relationship between CEO incentives and strong and weak corporate social performance. Using the KLD database we find that incentives have no significant relationship with strong social performance. Salary and long-term incentives have a positive association with weak social performance.     

Stability induced by “no-quibbling”

We demonstrate the important consequence of one particular type of voter behavior: the “differentiation” (“no-quibbling”) constraint that alternatives too similar to the alternative which they might replace will not be considered. We find that imposition of a sufficient differentiation norm leads to stable outcomes of decision making in a spatial context. We also briefly consider the potential effects of other possible constraints on feasible choices, especially as these might synergistically interact with choices based on “no-quibbling.”     

浅析企业集群的社会文化

企业集群发展模式,是适应全球经济竞争的有效途径。经济全球化促进了生产要素和商品的跨国流动,但产业空间集聚的意义非但没有降低,反而上升了。企业集群正日益成为区域竞争优势的重要源泉。社会文化特征是企业集群最重要的特征,是企业集群迅猛发展的重要因素。     

Statistical manipulability of social choice functions

We consider the proportion of profiles at which an anonymous neutral social choice function cannot be manipulated to any coalition's advantage. We fix the number of alternatives and consider the limit as the number of individuals goes to infinity, and assume that the limit of the fraction of all profiles in the domain is 1. We show that there is a continuous function on “profile vectors’ which gives the maximum probability of strategy-proofness, and that this is strictly between 0 and 1 for three alternatives. We also analyze a number of common social choice functions along these lines.     

农村社会养老保险制度分析——以北京市大兴区为例

农村社会养老保险能否建立并保持可持续发展,仅仅依靠需求动机是不够的,还需要政府的态度、财政能力、农民的意愿、制度设计的合理性等多方面条件。结合北京市大兴区农村社会养老保险试点方案,对上述问题作了简要分析。农村全面实行社会养老保险制度的时机还不够成熟。从防范老年贫困风险的角度出发,对处于贫困线以下的人群提供最低收入保障,尽快建立农村最低生活保障制度和完善农村社会救助制度是目前大多数农业地区比较理性的选择。