In conjunction with the most recent financial crisis and the growth of a specific financial market segment, a broad public debate has developed on finance and ethics. This thesis investigates the comparative financial performance of socially responsible funds and conventional funds over a period of five years.

1. Thesis Abstract
DOES SRI TRICK OR TREAT? A EUROPEAN
MUTUAL FUNDS’ PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
In conjunction with the most recent financial crisis and the growth of a specific financial
market segment a broad public debate on socially responsible investing performance has sprung.
The scope of this thesis is to investigate whatever socially responsible mutual funds trick or treat
investors. The academic literature indicates that there are no significant differences between
socially responsible funds’ performance and traditional funds. This thesis extends the matched
pair approach to socially responsible fund performance developed in previous studies by Mallin,
Saadouni and Briston (1995) and Gregory, Matatko and Luther (1997) and Kreandel et al. (2005).
The first matching was done by age, country, size, and investment universe of the fund. Whereas,
the second matching was done by domicile, investment universe, funds’managment company,
age, and size. An analysis of the results reveals that socially responsible funds outperform the
conventional funds of the first sample and perform as good as conventional funds of the second
sample. In conclusion, it could be argued that SRI does either trick or treat investors. SRI is a
legitimate investment approach that can be expected to provide investment performance on par
with investment funds that do not formally apply socially responsible investment principle.
by
Soukaina Aziz
University of Milan
Faculty of Political, Economic and Social Sciences
M.A. programme in International Relation | International Trade
Academic Advisor | Professor Luisa Anderloni