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About
Eric Ofosu-hene is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance at Leeds Business School, Leeds Beckett University (UK). He Chairs the Sustainability - Demography Mortality and Morbidity Working Party of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (UK), where he leads and drives research strategy on the impact of climate change on mortality and morbidity. He has consulted for several organisations in both the public and private sectors drawing on Enterprise Risk Management and Pensions Management expertise. His research work is at the intersection of actuarial science, finance and climate change and has published in leading journals including Energy Economics, Annals of Actuarial Science and others. Eric holds a PhD in Actuarial Science from University of Kent, a double Master of Science degrees with distinction in Actuarial Management and Actuarial Science from Heriot-Watt University and is a Qualified Accountant with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK).
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Publications (5)
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DivFolio: a Shiny application for portfolio divestment in green finance wealth management
July 2024
Annals of Actuarial Science18(2):379-422 Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Marupanthorn P, Peters GW, Ofosu-Hene ED, Nikitopoulos CS, Richards K-AAbstract
This paper introduces DivFolio, a multiperiod portfolio selection and analytic software application that incorporates automated and user-determined divestment practices accommodating Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and portfolio carbon footprint considerations. This freely available portfolio analytics software tool is written in R with a GUI interface developed as an R Shiny application for ease of user experience. Users can utilize this software to dynamically assess the performance of asset selections from global equity, exchange-traded funds, exchange-traded notes, and depositary receipts markets over multiple time periods. This assessment is based on the impact of ESG investment and fossil-fuel divestment practices on portfolio behavior in terms of risk, return, stability, diversification, and climate mitigation credentials of associated investment decisions. We highlight two applications of DivFolio. The first revolves around using sector scanning to divest from a specialized portfolio featuring constituents of the FTSE 100. The second, rooted in actuarial considerations, focuses on divestment strategies informed by environmental risk assessments for mixed pension portfolios in the US and UK.
Mechanisms for implementing fossil fuel divestment in portfolio management with impact on risk, return and carbon reduction
August 2024
Energy Economics136:107724 Elsevier BV
Marupanthorn P, Nikitopoulos CS, Ofosu-Hene ED, Peters GW, Richards K-AMechanisms to incentivize divestment strategies, such as divestment schedules, are an important component of carbon reduction strategies. We use dynamic asset allocation methodologies to assess this impact over time on index portfolios (S&P 500 and FTSE 100), and global exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Although return profiles are not affected, the risk profile of S&P 500 divestment portfolios is impacted by rapid divestment strategies as divestment concentration increases. Instantaneous divestment may benefit management structure, while slower divestment provides greater stability in portfolios’ tracking errors and benefits carbon reduction, especially from reinvested capital. Divesting from energy and utilities sectors reduces carbon footprint of up to 7%, while ETFs’ divesting from highly carbon concentrated ETFs offers further carbon footprint reductions. Investing in funds with low carbon footprint results in lower dividend returns and management fees. Although ETFs’ returns are insensitive to divestment strategies and schedules, their risk profiles are affected, proportionally to their carbon intensity, especially for rapid divestment and at the expense of higher tracking errors. Divestment strategies based on ESG rating screening of FTSE 100 portfolios improve diversification and impact risk/return performance. Our study underscores the importance of considering investors’ demographics, such as dividends, management structure, and carbon reduction targets.
THREE DECADES OF PENSION ACCOUNTING RESEARCH: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS ON IFRS AND US GAAP HARMONIZATION
Foreign competition and corporate cash holdings
31 March 2026
International Journal of Managerial Finance22(2):259-285 Emerald
Das BC, Ofosu-Hene ED, Danso A, Adu-Ameyaw E, Uddin MThis study investigates how foreign competition influences corporate cash holdings, an area that has received limited attention in the finance and management literature. It further explores how chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics and financial crises moderate this relationship. Using a panel dataset of 2,451 US firms from 2000 to 2020, we employ multivariate regression analyses to examine the relationship between foreign competition and corporate cash holdings. We also test for moderation effects using interaction terms and address potential endogeneity concerns with alternative specifications and robustness checks. The results indicate that foreign competition has a positive and statistically significant effect on corporate cash holdings. This effect is more pronounced during periods of financial crisis, suggesting that firms facing foreign competition increase their cash buffers in times of economic uncertainty. Additionally, CEO characteristics significantly moderate the foreign competition–cash holding relationship. This study extends the literature on corporate liquidity management by introducing foreign competition as a key determinant of cash holdings. It also contributes to the upper echelons perspective by highlighting how CEO attributes shape firm responses to external competitive pressures.Purpose
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