Both Kosowski et al. (2006) and Fama and French (2010) evaluate whether mutual funds outperform, but their conclusions are very different. We reconcile their findings. We show that the Fama and French method suffers from an undersampling problem that leads to a failure to reject the null...

The “real” price of gold in the U.S. is historically high, relative to its history as an actively tradable asset. But what about the real price of gold in other countries? It turns out that, in our impressionistic sample of 23 countries, the real price of gold is high everywhere. The real...

In March 2021, Campbell Harvey spoke with members of the Journal of Investment Consulting editorial advisory board about quantitative investment strategies. Taking part in the discussion were Inna Okounkova, Columbia University and editor-in-chief of the Journal; Mark J. P. Anson, The Commonfund;...

In this era of inexpensive computation and vast data, systematic, or algorithmically driven, investment is increasingly popular. Systematic strategies appear in stand-alone products as well in tail-hedging and defensive-overlay strategies. Indeed, given the enormous growth in data, it is...

Incentives distort research findings. We now know that research findings favorable to the sponsor of the research should be discounted on the grounds of conflict of interest (e.g., tobacco companies or pharma companies). Is the same true in the field of finance? I argue that economic incentives...

Much attention is paid to portfolio variance, but skewness is also important for both portfolio design and asset pricing. We revisit the empirical research on systematic skewness that we initiated 25 years ago. In an out-of-sample test, we find that the risk premium associated with skewness is...

We now know that research findings favorable to the sponsor of the research should be discounted on the grounds of conflict of interest (e.g., tobacco companies or pharma companies). Incentives distort research findings. Is the same true in the field of finance? I argue that economic incentives...

Impact costs occur when large buy or sell orders move market prices. The measurement of these costs is crucial for the evaluation of potential trading strategies as well as the successful execution of systematic investment strategies. However, common approaches suffer from a type of myopia:...