Institutional investors – often in response to some protest – occasionally choose to divest themselves of investment in industries that they believe are doing some social harm.

That move is a controversial one; many believe it is unlikely to have any impact on the industry, and thus the investors are only harming themselves by depriving themselves of potential profits.

And Marcia here at BLPB has argued that investors (like consumers) are rarely sufficiently committed to these causes – she doubts that “name and shame” policies, which are intended in part to encourage such moves, will have much of an effect in light of investors’ greater desire for return.

Well, here’s one new datapoint:  Calpers is revisiting its policy of refusing to invest in tobacco stocks.  Apparently, its moral commitments can’t quite hold up in the face of the industry’s rising share prices.  Calpers’s official position is apparently that it can do more good by “engaging” rather than by walking away, although when it comes to tobacco – a product that many criticize merely for its existence – it’s hard to see exactly how that happens.