Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?

Sustainable investments have become a highly popular choice amongst private investors over the last decades and the number of alternatives has increased on the Swedish market. Sustainable funds have become one of the more popular options for Swedish investors that looks for sustainable investment op...

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Autor principal: Thelander, Emil
Formato: Second cycle, A2E
Lenguaje:sueco
Inglés
Publicado: 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/15391/
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author Thelander, Emil
author_browse Thelander, Emil
author_facet Thelander, Emil
author_sort Thelander, Emil
collection Epsilon Archive for Student Projects
description Sustainable investments have become a highly popular choice amongst private investors over the last decades and the number of alternatives has increased on the Swedish market. Sustainable funds have become one of the more popular options for Swedish investors that looks for sustainable investment options. Sustainable funds should however not be able to compete with conventional funds, according to the modern portfolio theory. The theory state that sustainable funds should perform a lower return than conventional funds due to placement restrictions. Previous studies about sustainable funds are inconclusive on how sustainable funds have performed compared to conventional ones. This research aims to examine if there are any differences between sustainable and conventional funds in terms of risk-adjusted return on the Swedish market. Through a matched pair approach, 13 sustainable and 13 conventional funds were analyzed during a 6-year period between 2013 and 2018. The performance of the two fund categories were evaluated with Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen’s alpha to measure their risk-adjusted return. The performance of these funds was tested over time as well as during sub-periods of 2 years each. The results of this study indicate that the conventional funds performed a higher risk-adjusted return during the full sample period. The sustainable funds however performed a higher risk-adjusted return during the last sub-period between 2017 and 2018. However, there was no significant difference between sustainable and conventional funds during the full sample period or the sub-periods. Therefore, private investors can expect sustainable and conventional funds to yield the same risk-adjusted return over time.
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spelling RepoSLU153912020-03-04T02:00:38Z https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/15391/ Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return? Thelander, Emil Agricultural economics and policies Sustainable investments have become a highly popular choice amongst private investors over the last decades and the number of alternatives has increased on the Swedish market. Sustainable funds have become one of the more popular options for Swedish investors that looks for sustainable investment options. Sustainable funds should however not be able to compete with conventional funds, according to the modern portfolio theory. The theory state that sustainable funds should perform a lower return than conventional funds due to placement restrictions. Previous studies about sustainable funds are inconclusive on how sustainable funds have performed compared to conventional ones. This research aims to examine if there are any differences between sustainable and conventional funds in terms of risk-adjusted return on the Swedish market. Through a matched pair approach, 13 sustainable and 13 conventional funds were analyzed during a 6-year period between 2013 and 2018. The performance of the two fund categories were evaluated with Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen’s alpha to measure their risk-adjusted return. The performance of these funds was tested over time as well as during sub-periods of 2 years each. The results of this study indicate that the conventional funds performed a higher risk-adjusted return during the full sample period. The sustainable funds however performed a higher risk-adjusted return during the last sub-period between 2017 and 2018. However, there was no significant difference between sustainable and conventional funds during the full sample period or the sub-periods. Therefore, private investors can expect sustainable and conventional funds to yield the same risk-adjusted return over time. 2020-02-27 Second cycle, A2E NonPeerReviewed application/pdf sv https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/15391/7/thelander_e_200207.pdf Thelander, Emil, 2020. Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return? : a study on the Swedish fund market. Second cycle, A2E. Uppsala: (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Economics <https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/view/divisions/OID-510.html> urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-s-15391 eng
spellingShingle Agricultural economics and policies
Thelander, Emil
Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
title Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
title_full Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
title_fullStr Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
title_full_unstemmed Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
title_short Are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
title_sort are sustainable funds sustainable in terms of return?
topic Agricultural economics and policies
url https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/15391/
https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/15391/