Performance of ethical and conventional investment funds: comparison and contingencies

Abstract

A number of recent works have dealt with ethical investment funds, with a greater focus on the mechanisms by which these funds operate or are profitable. These studies have very rarely focused on their performance. The purpose of this paper is therefore to compare ethical and standard or conventional investment funds in terms of performance, focusing on the case of equity funds in Morocco and using the Sharpe index as a method of assessment. Overall, the statistical study shows a reconciliation of the average returns of the two samples and a divergence in terms of performance and risk. Taken individually, ethical values are well positioned in terms of profitability and much less so in terms of performance. Finally, contingency factors allowed a better understanding of the differences within the ethical group, both in terms of profitability and financial performance, in this case age and size.