{"title":"Sustainable institutional investment in the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Lai T. Hoang, Joey (Wenling) Yang","doi":"10.1177/03128962221078943","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article examines institutions’ investment strategies towards environmental and social (E&S) stocks in the first quarter of 2020, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Backed with both institutional- and firm-level analyses, we find that institutional investors shift towards stocks with higher E&S performance. The high E&S portfolios exhibit lower risk and return characteristics, outperforming (underperforming) their peers on market-down (-up) days. Further analysis shows this shift towards E&S is not a permanent transition, rather it reversed with the market rebound in the second quarter, thereby suggesting that the underlying driver of institutional E&S investment strategy in the pandemic is downside-risk protection. JEL Classification: G01, G12, G23, M14","PeriodicalId":47209,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Management","volume":"48 1","pages":"3 - 37"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Australian Journal of Management","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03128962221078943","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This article examines institutions’ investment strategies towards environmental and social (E&S) stocks in the first quarter of 2020, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Backed with both institutional- and firm-level analyses, we find that institutional investors shift towards stocks with higher E&S performance. The high E&S portfolios exhibit lower risk and return characteristics, outperforming (underperforming) their peers on market-down (-up) days. Further analysis shows this shift towards E&S is not a permanent transition, rather it reversed with the market rebound in the second quarter, thereby suggesting that the underlying driver of institutional E&S investment strategy in the pandemic is downside-risk protection. JEL Classification: G01, G12, G23, M14
期刊介绍:
The objectives of the Australian Journal of Management are to encourage and publish research in the field of management. The terms management and research are both broadly defined. The former includes the management of firms, groups, industries, regulatory bodies, government, and other institutions. The latter encompasses both discipline- and problem-based research. Consistent with the policy, the Australian Journal of Management publishes research in accounting, applied economics, finance, industrial relations, political science, psychology, statistics, and other disciplines, provided the application is to management, as well as research in areas such as marketing, corporate strategy, operations management, organisation development, decision analysis, and other problem-focuses paradigms.