Sustainable and Responsible Investing

Dear Colleagues,

Socially and environmentally responsible investing is becoming the benchmark in financial markets for several reasons. First, due to the emergence of climate change and global warming, and the lack of a global benevolent planner enforcing a system of emission caps across sovereign countries, corporations are increasingly asked by the public opinion and, consequently, investors to take responsibility for internalizing the environmental externalities of their activities. Second, recent research has identified exposure to ESG (environment, social, governance) risk as an independent risk factor to which financial assets are exposed. Conflicts with stakeholders, civil society, and expectations of future more severe regulation contribute to increase the importance of this risk factor. Within this frame, this Special Issue aims to deal with frontier research paths related to: i) progress in indicators measuring CSR and exposure to ESG factors and their effect on financial variables and performance; ii) the role of media coverage and communication versus expert-based evaluation in ESG risk and CSR measures; iii) the development of the market for green bonds; iv) responsible investing and the circular economy revolution; v) the (voluntary and regulatory) evolution of non-financial reporting and its consequences for CSR and financial asset dynamics.

Prof. Dr. Leonardo Becchetti
Prof. Dr. Rocco Ciciretti
Guest Editors

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