Dr. David Shkel

(in the fields covered by the research center)

The demand from private investors for sustainable finance products has increased continuously over recent years. Not only that, the range of available finance products has been constantly expanded. Alongside traditional investment opportunities, such as green stocks, the finace markets offer an expanding range of sustainable funds and, more recently, even sustainably strutured finance products. The latter are complex investment products that have been specially developed for private investors.

The issue with these complex products is the question as to whether they really make any contribution to a sustainable economy and whether private investors should pay a sustainability premium to buy such products. This is being analyzed as part of a research project.

In a comparison to classic investment opportunities, the research will focus on identifying which sub-groups private investors prefer when selecting sustainable investments and how high the costs are, i.e. what level of reduced returns are they prepared to accept for a focus on sustainability.