leaving the deepening to a consortium of funds

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the social investment Fund (ISR) promise to contribute to the morality of capitalism, by playing on the leverage to encourage companies to become more involved in the common interest. In these times of strong social demand for a "moral" capitalism, it is ironic that, although growth has been relatively high over the past few years, these ethical funds remain marginal in the household savings. While many have the impression that financial markets have been the scene of turpitudes in recent decades and are asking for more than a few adjustments to the regulations.

Some Sri funds seem to promise that their development will contribute at the end of the stock market redundancies, taking into account the long term in the decisions of firms, the morality of remuneration, the extinction of environmental or violation of the human rights disasters by the companies. At the same time, they suggest that they are able to outperform the market, offering therefore butter and butter money. This is theoretically possible in periods of expansion of the application for these funds, but not tenable once this market will come to maturity. This double speech, both utopian and mercenary, blurred savers including the altruistic motivations are countered by advertising on the outperformance while the latter seeks to flatter the opportunistic motives of others. This dissonance is problematic.

In the field of employment or the environment for example, the companies produce externalities that they are not naturally encouraged to integrate in their calculation of profitability. Public authority rarely manages to contain effectively all these externalities despite its interventions (market, CO2 permits control of redundancies...). By making less scarce capital and therefore less costly for companies behaving more responsibly, Sri funds industry is designed to support their development and to encourage others to do the same. But how to determine if an asset is worth appear in an Sri portfolio Of course, some exclude from outset industry arms or tobacco on the basis of simple principles. But what about nuclear power, which can boast the benefits in terms of the fight against climate change, or GMOs, which other believe that they will contribute to reducing hunger in the world How judging of a policy of relocation of production to African countries, which some of them have great need of these new jobs to solve problems much more vital than those of rich countries And what about the construction, which pays a heavy price in terms of accidents at work Without method transparent to decide these issues, the ISR is likely to undergo term critics and discredit all.

The best way to achieve an efficient allocation of resources in a decentralized economy is to coordinate the actors by a single price system. Therefore, give a value, a "price", in these extra-financial values that are important to potential investors in these funds. If these values are well selected, this method ensures their investors the best social gain is obtained for a given financial effort of savers. As it already for example for carbon emissions, that funds announce the value they provide to a policy of maintaining jobs, the restriction of the use of water, the quality of life, or the decline of mortality! That each fund determines and displays its values, and implement a comprehensive assessment of each asset in its portfolio on this basis, and make public their social performance!

But as the complexity of the debate between experts on climate change, the assessment of costs and benefits of action often is shown. Imagine poor funds Sri to develop fluency such topics as important as GMOs or social inequalities. But the most enterprising can debate in justifying their allocation of assets on the basis of brief analyses, leaving the deepening to a consortium of funds, or other stakeholders such as rating agencies ethical. This will give a clearer mandate these agencies today face challenges in other more complex than traditional rating agencies, same whose failure was involved in the current disaster.