TY - JOUR T1 - A Morality Tale of ESG: <em>Assessing Socially Responsible Investing</em> JF - The Journal of Wealth Management SP - 14 LP - 23 DO - 10.3905/jwm.2017.19.4.014 VL - 19 IS - 4 AU - Edward N.W. Aw AU - Stephen J. LaPerla AU - Gregory Y. Sivin Y1 - 2017/01/31 UR - https://pm-research.com/content/19/4/14.abstract N2 - A review of academic literature suggests a lack of consensus on positive and negative abnormal returns associated with socially responsible investing/environmental, social, and governance (SRI/ESG) factors. This article examines the benefit of incorporating ESG factors during a more recent period to acknowledge the ongoing investment trend toward ESG. The authors find that the top-quintile (most compliant) stocks ranked by ESG score underperform the out-sample research universe. They present evidence that indicates incorporating ESG into a robust quantitative investment process can mitigate the adverse effect, however, thus providing investors with a portfolio that outperforms a benchmark while allowing investors to embrace ESG.TOPICS: ESG investing, analysis of individual factors/risk premia, performance measurement ER -