Tournaments in Mutual Fund Families

Predation versus Cooperation in Mutual Fund Families

In this paper we investigate how mutual funds react to the distress of another fund in the same fund family. We test three alternative hypotheses: (1) funds help the distressed fund, (2) funds front-run the distressed fund improving their relative performance in the fund family and, (3) the family coordinates and benefits from front-running the distressed fund. Our results suggest that fund man...

Interfund lending in mutual fund families: Role in liquidity management

Although the 1940 Act restricts interfund lending within a mutual fund family, families can apply for regulatory exemptions to participate in interfund lending. We find that heterogeneity in portfolio liquidity and investor flows across funds, funds’ investment restrictions, and governance mechanisms influence the fund family’s decision to apply for interfund lending. We document several costs ...

Favoritism in Mutual Fund Families? Evidence on Strategic Cross-Fund Subsidization

We investigate whether mutual fund families strategically transfer performance across member funds to favor those more likely to increase overall family profits. We find that ‘High family value’ funds (i.e. high fees or high past performers) over-perform at the expense of ‘Low value’ funds. Such performance gap is above the one existing between similar funds not affiliated to the same family. B...

The MUTUAL FUND INDUSTRY

Mutual Fund Objective Misclassification∗

Mutual funds are usually classified based on their stated objectives. If the stated objectives are not the actual objectives the funds pursue, conclusions drawn by investors and researchers based on the stated objectives will be misleading. This study classifies funds based on their attributes (characteristics, investment style, and risk/return measures). We find that the stated objectives of m...