A Study on Management Skills in Equity Ethical Mutual Funds in Spain
Dr. Mohammad Ahmad Talalweh

Abstract
Social Responsible Investment (SRI) Funds are a growing sub-sector within the European funds industry. At present, they seem to be unaffected by the current financial crises, however, some questions remain unanswered concerning the management of SRI funds. Have investors made a financial sacrifice so as to invest in SRI funds? Are the SRI mutual fund managers skilled? If we accept the common concept of splitting fund manager skills into stock picking and market timing, we find that managers of Spanish equity SRI funds are not involved in stock picking activities, but that some changed the amount of equities in their portfolios in accordance with the broad market performance. Nevertheless, they did not show significant market timing abilities. The use of an appropriate SRI index is important for the accurate measurement of management skills in this type of fund.

Full Text: PDF