We develop a dynamic model of socially responsible investment where large households trade firm equity and vote on production decisions involving the depletion of a nonrenewable resource. Although accumulating wealth and exercising voice are intratemporal substitutes, they are dynamic complements because influence is tied to wealth. Socially responsible households delay implementing resource-preserving policies that reduce firm productivity to amass wealth for future influence, while financially-motivated households may accumulate wealth to block conservation efforts. The constrained efficient technological choice balances higher productivity with society’s willingness to pay for conservation, and can be implemented through a voting protocol that assigns voice based on how depletion impacts welfare rather than shareholdings.

This paper studies how the timing of NGO activism shapes its effectiveness in influencing corporate behavior. Using data on 2,500 campaigns targeting U.S. firms, we show that campaigns timed at annual general meetings (AGMs) generate large visibility gains but little contemporaneous influence, while campaigns launched before the AGM significantly increase shareholder proposal success and improve firms’ environmental and social performance. We develop a dynamic model in which NGOs trade off awareness building and credibility formation, generating a lifecycle in activism from visibility-seeking to influence-oriented engagement. Therefore, NGOs’ objectives evolve endogenously to coordinate shareholder pressure and shape corporate behavior.

We study how local externalities generate shareholder disagreement and shape portfolios, votes, and welfare. Investors are risk-averse and suffer from externalities produced by local firms. Firms choose a mix of "brown" (more productive) and "green" (less productive) technologies by vote proportional to ownership. Diversification invites distant "brown" votes, distorts locals’ holding and voting decisions, yielding a prisoner’s dilemma with excess "brown" output and inefficient risk sharing. A passive fund helps coordinate shareholders, improving welfare when the (endogenous) investor polarization is mild. Pass-through voting raises the fund’s AUM but destroys the fund’s coordination role, lowering the welfare except under severe polarization.