1 Introduction: Corporate Ownership -- Part I Hardware: A Value Creation Framework -- 2 The Primacy of an Owner’s Mission -- 3 The Board of Directors: Governing the Mission -- 4 The CEO and the Executive Team: Responsible for Executing the Mission -- 5 Goals, Strategies, and Fundamentals -- 6...

We show that the currency risk embedded in the benchmarks of international mutual funds negatively affects fund performance. More specifically, a high benchmark-implied currency risk induces funds to invest in markets with less volatile currencies, leading to a higher degree of currency...

We study outsourcing relationships among international asset management firms. We find that in companies that manage both outsourced and inhouse funds, inhouse funds outperform outsourced funds by 0.85% annually (57% of the expense ratio). We attribute this result to preferential treatment of...

We study international outsourcing in the asset management industry. We argue that subcontractor management companies use the funds they manage on behalf of third parties to subsidize their own inhouse funds. On average, inhouse funds outperform the outsourced funds by 7.5 basis points per...

We study the link between a firm's quality of governance and its alliance activity. We consider alliances as a commitment technology that helps a company CEO overcome agency problems that relate to the inability to ex-ante motivate division managers. We show that well-governed firms are more...

We study holdings in Mamp;A targets by financial conglomerates which affiliated investment banks advise the bidders. We show that advisors take positions in the targets before Mamp;A announcements. These stakes are positively related to the probability of observing the bid and to the target...

We study the impact of quot;style investingquot; on the market for corporate control. We argue that a firm may boost its market value by merging with a firm that belongs to an investment style that is more popular with the market. By using data on the flows in mutual funds, we construct a...

We study the impact of contractual incentives on the risk-taking behavior and the performance of US mutual funds. We measure incentives using the shape, i.e. concavity, of the fee structure in the advisory contract. Compared to the standard linear fee structure, a concave structure should create...

This paper studies one of the potential causes of the financial market bubble of the late 1990s: herding behavior of mutual funds. We show that the incentives contained in the mutual funds' advisory contracts induce managers to overcome their tendency to herd. We argue that investing in bubble...

This paper investigates how the investment horizon of a firm's institutional shareholders impacts the market for corporate control. We find that target firms with short-term shareholders are more likely to receive an acquisition bid but get lower premiums. This effect is robust and economically...