A typical hedge fund manager receives greater compensation when the fund has a strong absolute or relative performance. Asymmetric performance fees and fund flow-performance relationship may create incentives for risk-shifting, estimated in our study by the change in fund return volatility in...

Hedge fund managers with asymmetric performance-based compensation packages have the incentive to increase the risk taking of their funds in response to poor performance. Based on regression analysis of data from a panel of dollar-based hedge funds from 1994-2008, we find evidence that they do...