To understand the nature of hedge fund managers' skills, we study the implementation of risk arbitrage by hedge funds using their portfolio holdings and comparing them with those of other institutional arbitrageurs. We find that hedge funds significantly outperform a naive risk arbitrage...

This paper documents that small-cap mutual funds allocate on average 27% of their portfolio to mid- and large-cap stocks. We find that larger and older small-cap funds are more likely to hold mid- and large-cap stocks, consistent with funds straying from their objective over time. Funds that...

Extant research has focused on mutual fund managers' ability to time market returns or volatility. In this paper, we offer a new perspective on the traditional timing issue by examining fund managers' ability to time market wide liquidity. Using the CRSP mutual fund database, we find strong...