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 investigate the determinants and performance implications of cash holdings for a large sample of actively-managed equity funds domiciled in the European Union (EU). In line with recent evidence from the US, we observe that cash holdings are strongly influenced by a fund's fee structure, past...

We investigate the relationship between a mutual fund’s variation in systematic risk factor exposures and its future performance. Using a dynamic state space version of Carhart (1997)’s four factor model to capture risk factor variation, we find that funds with volatile risk factor exposures...

Recent academic research predicts that (i) equity mutual funds have a systematically better performance during periods of economic downturn and (ii) investors are willing to pay high fees for funds that provide recession insurance. In this paper, we test these hypotheses using international fund...

We examine the daily activity and performance of a large panel of individual investors in Sweden's Premium Pension System. We find that active investors earn higher returns and risk-adjusted returns than inactive investors. A performance decomposition analysis reveals that most of the...

We develop a new systematic tail risk measure for equity-oriented hedge funds to examine the impact of tail risk on fund performance and to identify the sources of tail risk. We find that tail risk affects the cross-sectional variation in fund returns, and investments in both, tail-sensitive...