Religion and returns in Europe

Drawing on social identity and social impact theory, this paper is the first to investigate the impact of religious preferences on share prices and expected returns at the country level. Using data from 12 European countries, our findings suggest that religion has a significant effect on the share price of companies whose activities are considered unethical, i.e., tobacco manufacturers and alcohol producers. The share price of these companies (called sin stocks) is depressed when they are located in a predominantly Protestant environment (relative to a Catholic environment). With investors in Protestant countries being more sin averse than in Catholic countries, they insist upon higher expected returns on sin stocks. Conversely, religious preferences do not have the same impact on the performance of other companies, e.g. socially responsible companies. Our results are robust to various methodologies and controlling for several firm-specific, industry-specific and country-specific characteristics.

The recent development and performance of ethical investments

In this chapter, we assess the recent development and performance of ethical investments around the world. Ethical investments include both socially responsible investments (following Environmental, Social and Governance criteria) and faith-based investments (following religious principles). After presenting the development of each type of funds in a historical context, we analyse their ethical screening process, highlighting similarities and differences across funds and regions. This leads us to investigate their characteristics in terms of return and risk, and finally evaluate their historical performance using various risk-adjusted performance measures on a small sample of US funds. Hence we are able to not only compare the performance of each fund with each other and with traditional investments, but also assess their relative resilience to the 2007-08 financial crisis.

Assessing energy consumption in supply chains

The paper addresses the transport activities and associated energy consumption involved in the production and supply of two products: jeans and yoghurt. In the case of jeans, the analysis is from the locations in which cotton is grown, to retail outlets in the UK; in the case of yoghurt, the analysis is from the supply of milk on farms, to retail outlets in France. The results show that the transport stages from the point of jeans manufacture to UK port are responsible for the greatest proportion of transport energy use per kilogram of jeans in the UK supply chain. In the case of the French yoghurt supply chains, the results indicate that each of the three transport stages from farm to third-party distribution centre consume approximately the same proportion of total freight transport energy. The energy used on the transport stage for yoghurt from third-party distribution centre to retail outlet varies depending on the type of retail outlet served. Far greater quantities of energy are used in transporting jeans than yoghurts from farm/field to retail outlet. This is explained by the distances involved in the respective supply chains. Both case studies demonstrate that the energy used by consumers transporting goods to their homes by car can be as great as total freight transport energy used in the supply chain from farm/field to retail outlet (per kilogram of product transported).

A Space of One's Own: Women's Magazine Consumption Within Family Life

This is a study of women's magazine consumption in the home. It explores issues of time and space, and addresses the importance the women who took part in the study place on magazine consumption in their lives, given the 'juggling' lifestyles experiences by most of them. The study reveals family life to be a landscape within which these women carve out what they perceive as valuable and rare time and space for themselves. The authors argue that in contemporary life women's magazines play a key part in the quest for me-time and time away from others, in both a tangible and experiential sense.