In this paper, we have sought to understand what has been the performance of university endowments, and what drives the observed pattern of performance. Our key observations are as follows: (a) the endowments of elite universities have grown dramatically faster than endowments overall; (b)...

In recent years, university endowments have received much attention for their spectacular returns and innovative investment strategies, but few papers have examined trends in the endowment sector at large. In this paper, we analyze a sample of 1,300 educational endowments between 1992 and 2005....

The returns that institutional investors realize from private equity investments differ dramatically across institutions. Using detailed and hitherto unexplored records of fund investors and performance, we document large heterogeneity in the performance of different classes of limited partners....