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Pricing Sin Stocks: Ethical Preference vs. Risk Aversion

We develop a model that reproduces the return and volatility spread between sin and non-sin stocks, where investors trade off dividends with the ethical assessment of companies. We relax the assumption of boycott behaviour and investigate the role played by the dividend share of sin stocks on their return and volatility spread relative to non-sin stocks. We empirically show that the dividend share predicts a positive return and volatility spread. This pattern is reproduced by our model when dividends and ethicalness are complementary goods and investors are sufficiently risk averse.

29. September 2017

Autoren Stefano Colonnello Giuliano Curatola Alessandro Gioffré

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Pricing Sin Stocks: Ethical Preference vs. Risk Aversion

Stefano Colonnello Giuliano Curatola Alessandro Gioffré

in: European Economic Review, 2019

Abstract

We develop an ethical preference-based model that reproduces the average return and volatility spread between sin and non-sin stocks. Our investors do not necessarily boycott sin companies. Rather, they are open to invest in any company while trading off dividends against ethicalness. When dividends and ethicalness are complementary goods and investors are sufficiently risk averse, the model predicts that the dividend share of sin companies exhibits a positive relation with the future return and volatility spreads. An empirical analysis supports the model’s predictions. Taken together, our results point to the importance of ethical preferences for investors’ portfolio choices and asset prices.

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Professor Stefano Colonnello, Ph.D.
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