UN PRI and private equity returns: empirical evidence from the US market

The paper aims at assessing economic impact of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) on investment performance. Specifically, the authors analyze whether adherence to the UN PRI program generates higher returns for the US private equity funds or not. The article collects a dataset of 135 US private equity funds in the 2006-2011 period and run multivariate regressions on the funds’ returns, employing UN PRI compliance as the key explanatory variable. Results indicate that investing responsibly pays also in economic terms, in addition to the reputational benefits it brings. The funds’ returns are linearly dependent on the UN PRI compliance variable, which is one of the most explanatory variables compared to the others analyzed. The evidence can be beneficial for the long time debated issue of trade-off between disclosure and privacy needs in the industry of private equity and alternative investments