Traditional risk-adjusted performance measures, such as the Sharpe ratio, the Treynor index or Jensen’s alpha, based on the mean-variance framework, are widely used to rank mutual funds. However, performance measures that consider risk by taking into account only losses, such as Value-at-Risk...

We argue that active management's popularity is not puzzling despite the industry's poor track record. Our explanation features decreasing returns to scale: As the industry's size increases, every manager's ability to outperform passive benchmarks declines. The poor track record occurred before...

We examine the determinants and consequences of mutual fund managers simultaneously managing multiple funds. Well-performing managers multitask by taking over poorly performing funds or launching new funds. Subsequent to multitasking, funds run by managers prior to multitasking (i.e., incumbent...

We examine the determinants and consequences of the multitasking phenomenon in the mutual fund industry where fund managers simultaneously manage multiple funds. We show that wellperforming managers multitask either by taking over poorly performing funds within fund companies (i.e., acquired...

The Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project survey for business owners, administered during the spring of 2010, reveals an increasingly important role of friends and family (Friends/Family) to provide capital for privately-held businesses. Examining business owners’ perceptions of their...

The aim of this survey is to review the most prevailing developments regarding the existence of the closed-end funds’ discounts and premiums and the factors which generate them. Despite the plethora of academic research conducted in order to reach a generally accepted explanation of the...

It is well-documented that mutual fund flows are positively related to funds' past performance. This paper focuses on the time-series variation of the performance-flow relationship. I find that investors are more sensitive to fund performance in some periods than other periods and that the...

It is well-documented that mutual fund flows are positively related to funds' past performance. This paper focuses on the time-series variation of the performance-flow relationship. I find that investors are more sensitive to fund performance in some periods than other periods and that the...

The currently observable flight of investors out of investment funds is counterintuitive even in a crisis situation, because they forego the benefits of the collective investment offered by the funds. In order to unveil the reasons for this development we analyze the internal governance...

This paper studies the role of investors' optimism about future economic growth in their investment decisions. Based on simple intuition, we argue that investors base their future investment decisions not only on asset-specific information, but also on their expectations about future economic...