Olga Tatarnikova

Interdisciplinary seminars
finance seminar

Olga Tatarnikova

ESSCA School of Management
Portfolio instability and socially responsible investment: Experiments with financial professionals and students
Venue

MEGA Salle Plot 2 - 2e étage

MEGA - Salle Plot 2 - 2e étage

Maison de l'économie et de la gestion d'Aix
424 chemin du viaduc
13080 Aix-en-Provence

Date(s)
Tuesday, April 9 2024| 10:30am to 12:00pm
Contact(s)

Eric Girardin: eric.girardin[at]univ-amu.fr
Gaël Leboeuf: gael.leboeuf[at]univ-amu.fr
Christelle Lecourt: christelle.lecourt[at]univ-amu.fr

Abstract

Efficiency of SRI portfolios is commonly assessed based on an inconclusive risk-return ratio. We propose to approach the efficiency of portfolios with the notion of instability. Unstable portfolios are characterized by higher transaction costs and human resources costs that justify search for more stable portfolios. We examine the instability of SRI portfolios from the perspective of behavioral finance. Based on data from incentivized experiments with 153 financial professionals and 233 students, we compare a baseline treatment to a ranking treatment in which participants received feedback regarding their average investment in SRI assets. We found that SRI portfolios had significantly lower instability: portfolios with a majority of SRI shares exhibited less instability in both treatments compared to conventional portfolios. Moreover, in the ranking treatment subjects invested more in SRI assets than in the baseline. In addition, the experiment revealed the convergence of professionals’ and students’ behavioral patterns.