New Developments in Social Investing by Public Pensions

The brief’s key findings are:

• Public pension funds continue to engage in social investing, most recently divesting from Iran and fossil fuels.
• However, social investing is often not effective, as other investors step in to buy divested stocks.
• Social investing can also produce lower investment returns, conflict with the views of beneficiaries and taxpayers, and interfere with federal policy.
• In short, public pension funds should not engage in social investing.