We show that fund families allocate their most skilled managers to market segments in which manager skill is rewarded best. In efficient markets, even skilled managers cannot generate excess returns. In less efficient markets, skilled managers can exploit inefficiencies and generate higher...

This paper provides evidence for a causal effect of equity prices on corporate investment and employment. We use fire sales by distressed equity funds during the 2007–2009 financial crisis to identify substantial exogenous underpricing. Firms whose stocks are most underpriced have considerably...

We present a model that helps explain several past collapses of securitization markets. Originators issue too many informationally insensitive securities in good times, blunting investor incentives to become informed. The resulting endogenous scarcity of informed investors exacerbates primary...

We examine the impact of institutional trading on stock resiliency during the financial crisis of 2007–2009. We show that buy-side institutions have different exposure to liquidity factors based on their trading style. Liquidity supplying institutions absorb the long-term order imbalances in...

Institutional trading arrangements often involve the portfolio manager delegating the task of trade execution to a separate division within the firm. We model the agency conflict that arises in this setting and show that optimal performance benchmarks often create an incentive to execute orders...

Clearinghouses support financial trades by keeping records of transactions and by providing liquidity through short-term credit that participants clear periodically. We study efficient clearing arrangements for exchanges, where traders must clear with a clearinghouse, and for over-the-counter...

We show that media coverage of mutual fund holdings affects how investors allocate money across funds. Fund holdings with high past returns attract extra flows, but only if these stocks were recently featured in the media. In contrast, holdings that were not covered in major newspapers do not...

Using data from Securities and Exchange Commission filings, I show that the typical bank loan is renegotiated five times, or every nine months. The pricing, maturity, amount, and covenants are all significantly modified during each renegotiation, whose timing is governed by the financial health...

We examine 20 years of direct private equity investments by seven large institutions. These direct investments perform better than public market indices, especially buyout investments and those made in the 1990s. Outperformance by the direct investments, however, relative to the corresponding...

We empirically analyze the nature of returns to scale in active mutual fund management. We find strong evidence of decreasing returns at the industry level. As the size of the active mutual fund industry increases, a fund׳s ability to outperform passive benchmarks declines. At the fund level,...