Environmental-Social-Governance Preferences and Investments in Crypto-Assets

Arbeitspapier

Individuals invest in Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG)-assets not only because of (higher) expected returns but also driven by ethical and social considerations. Less is known about ESG-conscious investor subjective beliefs about crypto-assets and how these compare to traditional assets. Controversies surrounding the ESG footprint of certain crypto-asset classes – mainly on grounds of their energy-intensive crypto mining – offer a potentially informative object of inquiry. Leveraging a unique representative household finance survey for the Austrian population, we examine whether investors' ESG preferences can explain cross-sectional differences in individual portfolio exposure to crypto-assets. We find a strong association between investors' ESG preferences and the crypto-investment exposure but no significant relationship for the benchmarks of traditional asset classes such as bonds and shares.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 243

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Household Saving; Personal Finance ; Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions ; Behavioral Finance: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets‡
• Subject: crypto-assets ; investment portfolio ; financial behaviour ; financial literacy ; environmental-social-governance preferences

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ciaian, Pavel ; Cupak, Andrej ; Fessler, Pirmin ; Kancs, d'Artis
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB)
• (where): Vienna
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/264835
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET