Private Equity (PE) has grown into a substantial asset class, but there remain major problems with measuring PE fund returns. Investors continue to use the internal rate of return (IRR) as a key measure of fund performance. It is well known that early returns of cash can have a substantial...

For years, research has been conducted to correctly model and predict the risk and return structures of Private Equity (PE) funds. Although past research has revealed valuable insight into the features of those funds, most risk and return model struggle with the dispersion of PE funds' returns,...

We analyze the relationship between contracts and returns in private equity (PE) investments. Contractual control in the form of covenants tends to be employed to identify good deals. Better quality firms are more likely to have covenant-rich contracts, as they are less concerned by the...

Limited partners allocate capital into venture capital funds with the expectation of a risk-return profile matching the fund’s investment style in terms of startup investment stage, location, and industry. This paper draws a connection between style drifts in these three dimensions and the...

This paper studies the effect of new fund flows on investment behavior and the resulting equilibrium price of risk. The Small Fund Industry model shows equilibria with overinvestment in unprofitable and underinvestment in profitable investment opportunities. The Large Fund Industry model derives...

This paper is the first systematic analysis of the impact of diversification on the performance of private equity funds. A unique data set allows the exact evaluation of diversification across the dimensions financing stages, industries, and countries. Very different levels of diversification...

We use proprietary data to examine factors that lead hedge fund managers to offer hurdle rates and investigate relative hedge fund performance based on risk adjusted returns. Using data from 3,571 hedge funds over a 15 year period, we find that funds that do not offer a hurdle rate outperform...

This study provides formal theoretical evidence that constructions of fund alpha that are implemented using robust specifications of asset pricing models generate alpha estimates that are well defined. Regardless, the formal theoretical model shows fund alphas that are constructed with the...

This research investigates the relationship between mutual funds investment style consistency, the future funds performance, and funds net flow. Using a large sample of actively-managed U.S. equity mutual funds from Morningstar database, for the period from January 2002 to December 2011, 5555...

We show that mutual fund ratings generate correlated demand that creates systematic price fluctuations. Mutual fund investors chase fund performance via Morningstar ratings. Until June 2002, funds pursuing the same investment style had highly correlated ratings. Therefore, rating-chasing...