CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Rahmatullah, Reja |
|---|---|
| Title | Testing the Resilience of ESG Focused Investing During COVID-19 |
| Summary | Over the past decade, there has been a massive restructuring of investor preference towards including more Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) focused securities into investment portfolios. The thrust towards ESG motivated investing comes from the idea that ESG investing can offer an element of downside risk protection during financial crises due to enhanced scrutiny placed on an entity’s business models, governance and risk management frameworks. This leads to more robust strategies motivating higher and more consistent performance in the long run. The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered large-scale disruptions and pushed global financial markets into freefall as investors forecast dire economic and financial implications against a backdrop characterized by immense uncertainty. However, the current financial downturn presents an opportunity to test the credibility of the hypothesis that ESG focused investing leads to better and more consistent financial performance during a financial crisis. The objective of the project was to assess the resilience of ESG focused investing since the repercussions of the outbreak began to impact global markets. The main idea was to compare performance and risk indicators of dedicated ESG indices, funds and high rated ESG companies from December 2019 to May 2020 with traditional market benchmarks and draw conclusions as to whether the hypothesis holds merit. |
| Supervisor | Szilagyi, Peter |
| Department | Economics MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/rahmatullah_reja.pdf |
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