Alpha, or outperformance of a benchmark, can be generated in many ways within a portfolio. It can be created by picking the top hedge fund managers, or by capturing the illiquidity premium via alternative assets. Venture capital is a major source of alpha for long-term investors. Alpha can also...

This stochastic simulation analysis examines the risk characteristics of target-date funds focusing on the trade-offs between wealth creation and security. The dynamic portfolio adjustment of marketed target-date funds, with varied asset allocations, along age and various time horizons is shown....

We examine how third party ratings and mandatory benchmark disclosure affect aggregate risk adjustment by retail investors. Morningstar changed its ratings methodology in June 2002. Before the change, the ratings were based on a risk-adjusted performance ranking of all US equity funds and highly...

Using trading data from Finland and the US, I empirically show that investors tend to buy riskier stocks following realized losses. The measure of risk that the investors seem to pay attention to is the market beta of a stock. This behavior of buying higher beta stocks after a realized loss is...

We present a general equilibrium model in which heterogeneous investors choose among bonds, stocks, and an Index Fund holding the market portfolio. We show that, under standard assumptions, an equilibrium exists. We then derive predictions for equilibrium asset prices, investor behavior, and...

Institutional investors, such as pensions and insurers, are typically constrained to hold enough wealth to be able to make their contractually promised payments to fund beneficiaries. This creates an additional risk in the economy, namely the risk of funding shortfall. We seek to explore the...

Elementary portfolio theory implies that environmentalists optimally hold more shares of polluting firms than non-environmentalists, and that polluting firms attract more investment capital than otherwise identical non-polluting firms. These results reflect the demand to hedge against high...

We propose and implement a procedure to optimally hedge climate change risk. First, we construct climate risk indices through textual analysis of newspapers. Second, we present a new approach to compute factor mimicking portfolios to build climate risk hedge portfolios. The new mimicking...

The equity risk premium (ERP) remains one of the most hotly contested ideas in finance. The disagreement, in practical and theoretical terms, centres on how best to measure the risk of an investment, how to convert this risk measure into an expected return that compensates the investor for...