We test the hypothesis that investment in actively managed mutual funds is linked to investor clienteles. We document that individual investors located in less affluent, less educated, and ethnic minority neighborhoods invest more in funds with expensive load fees. They also tend to invest a disproportionate amount in funds with no minimum-balance requirements, and find fewer funds and (fewer n...

Proponents of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) claim that mandating a uniform set of accounting standards improves financial statement comparability that in turn attracts greater cross-border investment. Our study tests this assertion by examining the change in foreign mutual fund investment in IFRS users following the mandatory adoption of IFRS in the European Union (EU) in 2...

This paper shows empirically that the positive association between mutual fund ownership and firm value in China is mainly driven by the informed trading of mutual funds. Utilizing the unique short term feature of mutual fund holdings for the period from 2001 to 2010, we provide an informational link between a decomposed component of market-to-book ratio (firm specific valuation component) and ...

Combining data on explicit brokerage commissions that mutual fund families paid for trade execution between 1996 and 1999 with data on mutual fund holdings of initial public offerings (IPOs), I document a robust positive correlation between commissions paid to lead underwriters and reported holdings of the IPOs they underwrote. Moreover, I find that the correlation is limited to IPOs with nonne...

Purpose of the study The relationship between mutual fund performance and fund flows has been studied widely, but less attention has been given towards mutual fund launches and their success. For services the company itself plays as the brand, and thus product launch can be viewed as brand line extension. This paper investigates the importance of brand performance, company track record, on the ...

We argue that mutual fund investors are more sensitive to salient in-your-face fees, like loads and commissions, than operating expenses. Our empirical analysis of mutual fund flows over the last 30 years yields strong support for our contention. We find consistently negative relations between fund flows and load fees. We also document a negative relation between fund flows and commissions char...

One of the most important factors shaping world outcomes is where investment dollars are placed. In this regard, there is the rapidly growing area called sustainable investing where environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) measures are taken into account. With people interested in this type of investing rarely able to gain exposure to the area other than through a mutual fund, we s...

Two new methodologies are introduced to improve inference in the evaluation of mutual fund performance against benchmarks. First, the benchmark models are estimated using panel methods with both fund and time effects. Second, the non-normality of individual mutual fund returns is accounted for by using panel bootstrap methods. We also augment the standard benchmark factors with fund-specific ch...

China’s pension system is facing a large gap of more than one trillion RMB. The investment efficiency of the social security fund therefore receives widespread attention in academic circles. We collected data of stocks held by the Chinese National Council for Social Security Fund (CNCSSF) from 2004 to 2012 to research the stocks’ investment efficiency, distinguishing between direct investment b...