Trinomial: Return-Risk and Sustainability: Is Sustainability Valued by Investors? A Choice Experiment for Spanish Investors Applied to SDG 12

Abstract

Traditionally, finance has paid attention to the risk-return trade-off. Recently, given the incorporation of the 2030 Agenda and climate change, a third pillar has been incorporated into the investment decision: sustainability. Socially responsible investment is an instrument that can incorporate all three pillars. This paper aims to assess sustainability by Spanish investors using a choice experiment by applying the Bayesian approach with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling and obtain the willingness to pay (invest) for each attribute. The results show that profitability remains the most important factor, although risk is at the same level as sustainability.

Keywords

• sustainable finance
• return-risk
• choice experiment
• willingness to invest
• relative importance
• Bayesian