The level of diseconomies of scale in asset management has important implications for tests of manager skill and the expected level of performance persistence. To identify the causal impact of fund size on future returns, we exploit the fact that small differences in returns can cause discrete...

Mutual fund managers can outperform the market by picking stocks or timing the market successfully. Previous work has estimated picking and timing skill, assuming that each manager is endowed with a fixed amount of each and found some evidence of picking skills and little evidence of timing...

Using the dollar-value a mutual fund manager adds as the measure of skill, we find that not only does skill exist (the average mutual fund manager adds about $2 million per year), but this skill is persistent, as far out as 10 years. We further document that investors recognize this skill and...

Compensation of mutual fund managers is paramount to understanding agency frictions in asset delegation. We collect a unique registry-based dataset on the compensation of Swedish mutual fund managers. We find a concave relationship between pay and revenue, in contrast to how investors compensate...

We establish an important role for the firm by studying capital reallocation decisions of mutual fund firms. At least 30% of the value mutual fund managers add can be attributed to the firm's role in efficiently allocating capital amongst its mutual fund managers. We find no evidence of a...

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,...

Using a large sample of institutional investors' private equity investments in venture and buyout funds, we estimate the extent to which investors' skill affects returns from private equity investments. We first consider whether investors have differential skill by comparing the distribution of...

This paper studies how portfolios with a global investment scope are actually allocated internationally using a unique micro dataset on U.S. equity mutual funds. While mutual funds have great flexibility to invest globally, they invest in a surprisingly limited number of stocks, around 100. The...

This paper presents a model comparing the degree of asset class diversification abroad by a central bank and a sovereign wealth fund. We show that if the central bank manages its foreign asset holdings in order to meet balance of payments needs, particularly in reducing the probability of sudden...

This paper uses micro-level data on mutual funds from different financial centers investing in equity and bonds to study how investors and managers behave and transmit shocks across countries. The paper finds that the volatility of mutual fund investments is driven quantitatively by both the...