Convenience in the mutual fund industry

The MUTUAL FUND INDUSTRY

Measuring Skill in the Mutual Fund Industry∗

Using the dollar-value that a mutual fund adds as the measure of skill, we find that the average mutual fund adds about $2 million per year and that this skill persists for as long as 10 years. We further document that investors recognize this skill and reward it by investing more capital with better funds. Better funds earn higher aggregate fees, and there is a strong positive correlation betw...

Market Discipline and Internal Governance in the Mutual Fund Industry∗

This paper develops a continuous-time model in which a portfolio manager is hired by a management company. Based on past portfolio returns, all agents update their beliefs about the manager’s skills. In response, investors can move capital into or out of the mutual fund, the portfolio manager can alter the risk of the portfolio and the management company can replace the manager. We examine the ...

Advertising and Market Structure in the US Mutual Fund Industry

This paper empirically investigates the impact of consumer characteristics on firms’advertising choice and resultant market structure by exploiting differences in investor clientele across various segments in the US mutual fund industry. I find that firms that sell directly to consumers exhibit a higher advertising elasticity of demand, higher advertising expenditures, and higher market concent...

Risk Behavior and Performance Benchmarks in the Mutual Fund Industry

The determinants of risk tolerance play an essential role in asset pricing. In this paper, I develop and test empirically a behavioral model of investor risk strategies. Difficulty in quantifying many of the elements of behavioral theories has so far necessitated experimental, rather than empirical, evaluation of most such models. Therefore, the methodology employed in this paper – testing a be...