Authors: Riikka Sievänen Hannu Rita Bert Scholtens
Publish Date: 2012/10/07
Volume: 117, Issue: 1, Pages: 137-151
Abstract
We investigate what drives responsible investment of European pension funds Pension funds are institutional investors who assure the income of part of the population for a long period of time Increasingly stakeholders hold pension funds accountable for the nonfinancial consequences of their investments and many funds have engaged in responsible investing However it appears that there is a wide difference between pension funds in this respect We investigate what determines pension funds’ responsible investments on the basis of a survey of more than 250 pension funds in 15 European countries in 2010 We use multinomial logistic regression and find that especially legal origin of the country ownership of the pension fund and fund sizerelated variables are to be associated with pension funds′ responsible investment For fund size we establish a curvilinear relationship especially the smallest and largest pension funds in the sample tend to engage with responsible investingWe want to thank the editor and the anonymous referees for their useful comments Riikka Sievänen acknowledges the financial support from the Foundation of Economic Education and Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation We are grateful for the comments and suggestions of the participants of the UN’s PRI and MISTRA Conference in Sigtuna Sweden September 26–28 2011 The usual disclaimer applies
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