Enrichetta Ravina, a financial economist specializing in corporate governance, ESG, and the political economy of investing, emphasizes the role of institutional investors in societal choices and provides a measure of institutions’ ideological leanings.
Using methods from political science and data on mutual fund families votes at companies’ shareholder meetings, Ravina finds that funds are distributed on a left to right ideological spectrum going from socially and environmentally friendly to purely return-focused. A secondary ideological dimension reflects funds’ degree of friendliness toward. Funds are the largest shareholders of public companies and play an outsized role in the economic, social, and political realms. This research provides a window into their preferences and stances based on their actual voting behaviors.