Do investors care about sustainable investment targets? An assessment using the sustainable finance disclosure regulation

Nikolai Badenhoop and Christian Mücke

No 457, SAFE Working Paper Series from Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE

Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of disclosures of sustainable investment targets under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) on mutual fund flows. Using a staggered difference-in-differences setup and focusing on retail-oriented index funds, we find that sustainable investment targets have a temporarily positive impact on fund flows in comparison to funds without sustainable investment targets. Furthermore, we find a negative linear relationship between sustainable investment targets and fund flows. While lower targets attract higher fund inflows, higher targets result in significantly lower or even no inflows. Our results suggest that up to a target level of 20% in sustainable investments, index funds can attract more inflows. This suggests a trade-off between sustainability commitments and performance considerations.

Keywords: Sustainability; ESG; SFDR; Mutual Funds; Index Funds; Fund Flows; Disclosure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G14 G23 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:safewp:325502

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5474749

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