The demand for structured products: an experimental approach

Guaranteed investment funds are showing an important growth in the mutual fund industry. We analyze this type of fund’s demand using the experimental methodology. Different types of structured guaranteed funds, with certain combinations of secured and additional benefits, are sequentially offered to university students who act as investors. Subjects also have the possibility to buy bonds. Our results show that information available to investors, and particularly the order in which it is presented, generates significant biases in their decision making which can have both positive and negative effects on their financial behavior. In fact, when the investment alternatives are made easier to compare, “too good to be true” investment offers get more easily spotted, while “guaranteed” investment products with a positive evolution result overvalued in comparison to bonds

La Comunitat Valenciana, pionera en España en ciudadanía corporativa

Comunicació presentada al I Congrés Obert i Virtual Castelló2020. Castelló, 1-2 març, 201

Propuestas de la responsabilidad social corporativa en un contexto de crisis financiera internacional

The current financial crisis installed in the real economy, has affected strongly the companies, and the crisis has changed completely the global scene, and the role that the companies and other social actors will to play in the economy and financial system. In this context, the implementation of an ethical management and with policies of Corporate Social Responsibility has a special dimension, since it has turned into a necessary tool to improve the financial and managerial health. This way so, the article has the objective to analyse the relation between the financial crisis and its impact in the Corporate Social Responsibility, analyzing from the origins of the crisis to how it has affected the development of the Corporate Social Responsibility, studying the mechanisms that there are to improve. In the article it presents tools and guidelines to try not to return to make the mistakes that have taken us to the present financial crisis, and especially to anticipate future crisis. The final conclusion shows that the Corporate Social Responsibility needs methodologies of more responsible analyses and with a better management of the risk.La actual crisis financiera, instalada en la economía real, ha impactado con fuerza en el tejido empresarial, habiendo cambiado completamente el escenario global, y el rol que las empresas y otros actores sociales habrán de jugar en dicho escenario. En este contexto, la implementación de una gestión ética y con políticas de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa adquiere una dimensión especial, puesto que se ha convertido en una herramienta necesaria para mejorar la salud financiera y empresarial. Así pues, en el artículo que sigue se analiza la relación entre la crisis financiera y su impacto en la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa, analizando desde los orígenes de la crisis hasta cómo ésta ha impactado en el desarrollo de la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa, profundizando en los mecanismos que conviene mejorar, y que por tanto, impidieron preveer esta situación. En el artículo se presentan algunas herramientas y directrices, para intentar no volver a incurrir en los errores que nos han llevado a la actual crisis financiera, y sobre todo, permitan prevenir crisis futuras. Como conclusión final, se puede afirmar que la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa necesita superar este proceso de crisis financiera con metodologías de análisis más responsables y con una mejor gestión del riesgo

The Challenges of Socially Responsible Investment Among Institutional Investors: Exploring the Links Between Corporate Pension Funds and Corporate Governance

During the last few decades, globalization of finance markets has come under increasing pressure to manage the many risks that companies face due to the negative impact that certain financial crises have had on securities quoted on the stock exchange. Simultaneously, there is a growing tendency among different institutional investors to take into account nonfinancial aspects—social, environmental, and ethical values—of company management. In this respect, increasing numbers of asset managers are aware of the importance of nonfinancial aspects of company management for finance markets. Asset managers integrate corporate social responsibility, sustainability policies and corporate governance strategies as indicators in risk management and the search for long-term investments. The largest segment of socially responsible investment (SRI) screened and mutual funds are portfolios that are privately managed on behalf of institutions. Socially responsible investors include private and public pension funds, mutual funds, and private accounts that are managed on behalf of institutional investors such as corporations, universities, hospitals, religious institutions, and nonprofit organizations, among others. The aim of this paper is to analyze the development of SRI-screened management corporate pension plans in the Spanish finance market. Spain is one of the European countries with a less developed SRI institutional market. Since SRI is still at the fledgling stage in the Spanish institutional market, this analysis is restricted to the awareness of SRI among a sample of the total number of corporate pension funds or schemes in Spain. The paper concludes with some proposals to encourage wider SRI acceptance and practice in Spain