PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Edward N.W. Aw AU - Stephen J. LaPerla AU - Gregory Y. Sivin TI - A Morality Tale of ESG: <em>Assessing Socially Responsible Investing</em> AID - 10.3905/jwm.2017.19.4.014 DP - 2017 Jan 31 TA - The Journal of Wealth Management PG - 14--23 VI - 19 IP - 4 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/19/4/14.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/19/4/14.full AB - 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