Responsible Investing

Responsible investing is more than ever before high on the agenda of institutional investors. Pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, and other insititutional investors with fiduciary duties increasingly integrate environmental, social, and corporate governance factors in their investment decisions.

ECCE investigates how ESG factors influence investment risks and returns accross various asset classes, in the short run and long run. ECCE also helps fiduciaries understand the preferences of investors (clients and benificiaries) for certain environmental, social, and governance issues.

The diminishing alpha potential of ESG

Working paper

02-02-12 | Jeroen Derwall | Kees Koedijk | A significant number of institutional investors publicly express the belief that corporate stakeholder relations are associated with (intangible) firm value in a manner that the financial market fails to understand. We investigate whether stakeholder information predicted risk-adjusted returns due to errors in investors’ expectations and ultimately ceased to do so as attention for such information increased. Using a sample of S&P 500 and Russell 3000 constituents...
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Ann Vanstraelen

Ann Vanstraelen holds a Ph.D in Applied Economics of the University of Antwerp (2000) and is currently full professor of accounting & assurance services at Maastricht University. Her research interests primarily relate to governance, financial reporting quality, auditing and other assurance services. She has published in leading academic journals, and has been...
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Rachel Pownall
ECCE Research Fellow

Rachel works at the Tilburg Sustainability Centre at Tilburg University and as an Associate Professor of Finance and at the University of Maastricht as an Assistant Professor of Finance. She is a leading scholar in Art Finance, and alternative investments, such as emotional assets. She works in the areas of behavioural finance, risk management, sustainibility and...
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