Because of differences in accrued gains and investors' tax-sensitivity, capital gains "lock-in" varies across mutual funds even for the same stock at the same time. Using this variation, we show that tax lock-in affects funds' governance decisions. Higher tax lock-in decreases the likelihood a...

We test the predictability of investment fraud using a panel of mandatory disclosures filed with the SEC. We find that disclosures related to past regulatory and legal violations, conflicts of interest, and monitoring have significant power to predict fraud. Avoiding the 5% of firms with the...

We show that the allocation of managerial ownership to individuals within firms varies depending upon the joint distribution of decision control and decision management rights. Using a unique dataset of institutional investment management firms, we show that ownership is higher for managers:...

Employing an instrumental variable approach based on the regulatory change of tick sizes, I examine the link between the liquidity of a firm's equity and activism by large shareholders. I find that liquidity increases the likelihood of block formation. Blockholders of more liquid securities take...

This paper tests the effect of background risk on university endowment portfolios, where background risk is defined as the volatility of universities' nonfinancial income. The results show that higher background risk is associated with lower portfolio standard deviations. Universities with...

Endowment payouts have become an increasingly important component of universities' revenues in recent decades. We study how universities respond to financial shocks to endowments and thus shed light on a number of existing models of endowment behavior. Endowments actively reduce payouts relative...

Academic and practitioner research yields a proliferation of methods using size and value/growth attributes or factors to evaluate portfolio performance. We assess the relative merits of several of the most widely-used procedures, including variants of matched-characteristic benchmark portfolios...

In this paper we empirically test if loss-aversion affects household participation in equity markets, household allocations to equity, and household allocations between mutual funds and individual stocks. Using household survey data, we obtain direct measures of each surveyed household's...

Academic and practitioner research evaluates portfolio performance using size and value/growth attributes or factors. We assess the merits of popular evaluation procedures based on matched-characteristic benchmark portfolios or time-series return regressions by applying them to a sample of...