1,720,955 research outputs found
Essays on Sustainable Investing: From ESG Metrics to Portfolio Decisions and Investor Behavior
No full textLa presente Tesi di Dottorato, articolata in tre studi interconnessi, affronta le sfide fondamentali che emergono dall’integrazione della sostenibilità, intesa come ambientale, sociale e di governance, nel processo decisionale finanziario, superando il paradigma tradizionale rischio-rendimento. L’obiettivo centrale è contribuire al dibattito accademico e normativo (in particolare nell’ambito del quadro normativo MiFID II) analizzando come le preferenze di sostenibilità possano essere valutate, misurate e integrate operativamente nella selezione di portafoglio, ponendo l’accento sulla necessità di robustezza metodologica delle metriche ESG e sulla sfera comportamentale degli investitori.
Il primo studio fornisce una revisione critica e una sistematizzazione dei modelli di selezione di portafoglio, evidenziandone limiti e traiettorie di sviluppo future. Il secondo studio, attraverso un modello di selezione del portafoglio basato sulla programmazione per obiettivi (Goal Programming) ed un indicatore ESG armonizzato che penalizza il disaccordo tra i rating, mitiga la divergenza della performance di sostenibilità e produce risultati più stabili per gli investitori. Infine, il terzo studio dimostra che le preferenze di sostenibilità dichiarate non sono predittive del comportamento di investimento rivelato, sollevando un paradosso normativo: i questionari potrebbero suscitare risposte ambiziose che non corrispondono alle reali intenzioni comportamentali, sovrastimando la domanda effettiva di prodotti ESG.
Nel complesso, la tesi delinea un percorso di ricerca che parte dall’identificazione delle lacune teoriche e metodologiche, propone una soluzione quantitativa per affrontare l’incertezza dei dati ESG e conclude con la validazione empirica delle ipotesi comportamentali alla base del mercato. L’insieme dei risultati offre strumenti analitici ed evidenze empiriche utili a rendere gli investimenti sostenibili più efficaci, trasparenti e credibili.This Ph.D. Thesis, structured around three interrelated studies, addresses the fundamental challenges arising from the integration of sustainability, defined in its environmental, social, and governance dimensions, into financial decision-making, thus moving beyond the conventional risk-return paradigm. The central objective is to advance academic and regulatory debate (particularly within the MiFID II framework) by examining how sustainability preferences can be evaluated, quantified, and operationally integrated into portfolio selection processes.
The first study presents a critical review and synthesis of existing portfolio selection models, identifying their shortcomings and proposing future directions. The second study employs a Goal Programming (GP)-based portfolio selection model, integrating a harmonized ESG indicator that penalizes discrepancies among ratings. This approach reduces divergence in sustainability performance and delivers more stable outcomes for investors. The third study reveals that self-reported sustainability preferences are not reliable predictors of actual investment decisions, exposing a regulatory paradox: survey instruments may prompt aspirational responses that do not align with genuine behaviors, thus overstating real demand for ESG products.
Overall, this thesis maps a research journey that begins by identifying conceptual and methodological gaps, introduces a quantitative strategy to address ESG data uncertainty, and culminates in empirical validation of behavioral assumptions in the market context. Collectively, the findings offer analytical frameworks and empirical evidence to enhance the effectiveness, transparency, and credibility of sustainable investments
Le iniziative di educazione alla finanza sostenibile
No full textLa scelta di investimento in prodotti finanziari sostenibili è caratterizzata da un ecosistema profondamente complesso e un mercato in rapida crescita, specie se si considera quello europeo che sta svolgendo il ruolo di apripista a livello globale in ambito di sostenibilità. Premesso che l’obiettivo del legislatore europeo è quello di orientare sia gli investitori istituzionali sia quelli privati verso prodotti finanziari sostenibili, va considerato che per gli investitori retail uno dei deterrenti principali all’investimento sostenibile è la mancanza di un’educazione finanziaria alla sostenibilità. L'obbiettivo di questo capitolo sarà quello di analizzare il contesto internazionale in materia di educazione alla finanza sostenibile, con un focus particolare sul livello di conoscenze di finanza sostenibile in Italia. In seguito, si comprenderanno quali aspetti di finanza comportamentale occorre tenere in considerazione quando si progettano iniziative di educazione alla finanza sostenibile e, infine, si porrà la lente sulle recenti iniziative adottate a livello comunitario, internazionale e nazionale
Unlocking sustainable investing through digital financial literacy: the impact of advanced digital skills
Full text linkPurpose: This paper aims to investigate whether and how different levels of digital financial literacy (DFL) foster sustainable investing. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use a large, representative sample of more than 5,000 Italian households (Edufin Report, 2023), representing individuals responsible for managing the family finances. A principal component analysis (PCA) is used to assess respondents’ DFL, which reflects self-reported confidence in conducting financial transactions through digital devices. The paper adopts probit models to investigate the link between DFL and holding at least one sustainable asset in households’ portfolio while controlling for certain socio-demographic and behavioural variables. Findings: The results show that DFL has a positive and significant effect on the likelihood of holding sustainable investments, but only among investors with advanced digital skills that enable them to manage sophisticated financial activities (e.g. investing or pension management). The results are robust to alternative measures of DFL and to endogeneity concerns. In particular, the most predictive measures of DFL relate to investors’ behaviours and attitudes towards, rather than awareness of, digital financial services. The behavioural dimension is further supported by the positive association between sustainable investment holding and self-assessed financial literacy, optimism and overconfidence. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically connect DFL to sustainable investment holdings among individual investors. Building on previous insights on digitalisation and sustainability in the business context, this study identifies DFL as a critical enabler of households’ sustainable investments. This study provides new evidence on how promoting advanced digital skills can foster financial inclusion and support the uptake of environmental, social and governance investments among households
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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