We examine the effect of the introduction of Morningstar's Sustainability Rating in March 2016 on U.S. mutual equity fund flows. Using panel regressions, propensity score matching, and an event study methodology we find strong and robust evidence that retail investors shift money away from...

We exploit variation in the ancestries of U.S. equity mutual fund managers to show that ancestry affects portfolio decisions. Controlling for fund firm location, we find that funds overweight stocks from their managers’ ancestral home countries in their non-U.S. portfolio by 132 bps or 20.34%...

This paper investigates the role of incomplete investor information in financial innovations. By analyzing the information that structured product issuers provide to the investors of those products, we find that issuers have an information advantage over investors regarding two important...

This article finds strong evidence for the presence of the disposition effect among US mutual fund managers. The analysis can establish a link between the disposition effect and mutual fund characteristics as well as changes in the macroeconomic environment. Managers with a lower disposition...

Current discussions about public and private pension plans often state that the stock market is less risky in the long run than in the short run. Pension plans with their rather long planning horizon are therefore asked to increase the allocation to the stock market. Such statements, however,...

Das Anlageverhalten von Privatinvestoren unterscheidet sich teilweise markant von Voraussagen, die aufgrund von Modellen der Portfolioselektion getroffen werden können. So sind zum Beispiel Portfolios häufig nicht breit diversifiziert, weder bezüglich der Anzahl Titel noch bezüglich der...

This study questions the rationality of people investing in HFs. I use a sample of London listed closed-end hedge funds to evaluate two criteria that imply irrational behavior. I find that the rationality of investors can not be rejected for the majority of time. However, the results also imply...