Does CSR motivate investors? An attempt to answer this question through simulation.

Summary In order to identify the motivations of individual investors for SRI and to verify whether the motivations they express actually affect their investments, we set up a simulation of investment choices. Using an original methodology, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, we arrived at the following results: in their discourse, it is the outperformance potentially provided by SRI that motivates investors, taking into account institutional or social pressure, independent of any financial consideration. In the choices made, the outperformance expressed as a motivation is only found in the portfolios of certain investors, those whose financial performance is not good. In order to make these results intelligible, in particular for banks and financial institutions looking for solutions that would allow them to capture this category of investors, we have mobilized the concept of cognitive dissonances that disrupt the decision-making mechanism.