Do investors in Spain react to news on sustainability and corporate social responsibility?

Abstract

We analyse whether sustainability and corporate social responsibility-related news affects returns of stocks traded on the Spanish stock market. We used event methodology and an approach consistent with the active management of investment portfolios. Results show that in the short term, investors do not consider these news items to be relevant, and they therefore have no effect on the price of the stocks analysed. This result holds when the study is conditioned to the type of news (positive or negative) and whether or not the stocks belong to an index formed following socially responsible investment criteria