Evaluating ESG Mutual Funds in India: A Multi-Method Approach to Performance, Flows, Greenwashing and Pricing

However, given India's retail-heavy investor base and fledgling ESG-disclosure system, it is still an open empirical question whether ESG (environmental, social and governance) labelled mutual funds find out and provide superior performance, generate “true” ESG-flows, minimize greenwashing, or earn a valuation premium. This paper develops a fully replicable research methodology for examining four null hypotheses of performance parity, flow insensitivity, greenwashing and valuation premium. It combines five institutional data sources with five hypothesis-specific tools: an India-augmented Carhart five-factor alpha model, Arellano-Bond dynamic panel GMM, portfolio-level greenwashing indexing, bootstrap inference, and dual-green sellers triangulation as well as regression discontinuity design centered around the 2021 BRSR mandate. The design emphasizes causal identification, construct validity, and replicability and serves as a blueprint for ESG fund research in other emerging economies with limited data and retail investors.