SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING AND PORTFOLIO DIVERSIFICATION

I use a sample of socially responsible stock mutual funds matched to randomly selected conventional funds of similar net assets to investigate differences in characteristics of assets held, portfolio diversification, and variable effects of diversification on investment performance. I find that socially responsible funds do not differ significantly from conventional funds in terms of any of these attributes. Moreover, the effect of diversification on investment performance is not different between the two groups. Both groups underperform the Domini 400 Social Index and S&P 500 during the study period. 2005 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.