Finance Seminar with Paul Smeets, University of Amsterdam

On Friday, March 21, 2025, Paul Smeets, will be giving a seminar on the paper: Why Do Investors Pay Higher Fees for Sustainable Investments? An Experiment in Five European Countries

Friday, March 21, 2025 - 11:00 to 12:15

The Department of Finance is proud to announce the upcoming seminar with Paul Smeets, University of Amsterdam.

Paul Smeets will present: Why Do Investors Pay Higher Fees for Sustainable Investments? An Experiment in Five European Countries

Abstract:
We study why investors are willing to pay higher fees for sustainable investments using large-scale online experiments with individual investors across five European countries. We focus on two potential explanations - investors’ social preferences and limited financial literacy. We find that, across all countries, social preferences significantly contribute to the share of sustainable investments in investment portfolios. However, social preferences do not significantly influence investors’ sensitivity to fees. Instead, financially illiterate investors pay higher fees, because they pay less attention to fees and (wrongly) believe funds with higher expenses outperform after fees. These results have important implications for financial regulation.

Location:
Solbjerg Plads 3
2000 Frederiksberg
Room: SPs07

The page was last edited by: Department of Finance // 03/17/2025