This paper investigates whether mutual fund families acting as trustees of 401(k) plans display favoritism toward their own funds. Using a hand-collected dataset on retirement investment options, we show that poorly-performing funds are less likely to be removed from and more likely to be added...

Companies that freeze defined benefit pension plans save the equivalent of 13.5 percent of the long-horizon payroll of current employees. Furthermore, firms with higher prospective accruals are more likely to freeze their plans. Cost savings would not be possible in a benchmark model in which i)...

We investigate the characteristics and the default behavior of households who take out complex mortgages. Unlike traditional fixed rate or adjustable rate mortgages, complex mortgages are not fully amortizing and enable households to postpone loan repayment. We find that complex mortgages are...

Our paper investigates spillover effects across different business segments of publicly traded mutual fund management companies. We find that the prior stock price performance of the management company has a significant impact on the money flows and the management turnover of the affiliated...

Participants in defined contribution (DC) retirement plans rarely adjust their portfolio allocations, suggesting that their investment choices and consequent money flows are sticky and not discerning. Yet, the participants' inertia could be offset by the DC plan sponsors, who adjust the plan's...

This paper analyzes the geographical preferences of hedge fund investors and the implication of these preferences for hedge fund performance. We find that funds of hedge funds overweight their investments in hedge funds located in the same geographical areas and that funds of funds with a...

Mutual funds are pooled investment vehicles with diverse tax clienteles. Whereas many mutual funds are held primarily by taxable investors, a significant fraction of mutual fund assets are held in tax-qualified retirement accounts. Our paper investigates whether the characteristics, investment...

Mutual fund managers may decide to deviate from a well-diversified portfolio and concentrate their holdings in industries where they have informational advantages. In this paper, we study the relation between the industry concentration and the performance of actively managed U.S. mutual funds...

Tax rates have fluctuated considerably since federal income taxes were introduced in the United States in 1913. This paper analyzes the effects of stochastic taxation on asset prices in a dynamic general equilibrium model. Stochastic taxation affects the after-tax returns of both risky and safe...

We investigate the impact of government debt on corporate financing decisions. We document a negative relation between government debt and corporate leverage using data on 40 countries between 1990 and 2014. This negative relation holds only for government debt that is financed domestically and...