This paper is concerned with the use of currently available technology to provide individuals, financial advisors and pension fund financial planners with detailed prospective financial plans tailored to an individual's financial goals and obligations. By taking account of all prospective cash...

Imitation is ubiquitous, yet the comparative efficacy of imitation strategies is poorly understood. A popular imitation strategy, sometimes called benchmarking, “mixes-and-matches” the practices common to leading firms. Using computational models, we compare benchmarking to the...

Replication products strive to offer investors some of the benefits of hedge funds while avoiding their high fees, illiquidity, and opacity. We test whether a replication algorithm can deliver the diversification and high Sharpe ratio that investors seek. Our procedure constructs monthly clone...

We introduce a novel methodology to identify copycat behavior in mutual funds. We find that imitation is pervasive in the mutual fund industry. While most copycats underperform, a small number are 'smart imitators'. We find that funds at the high and low ends of the Copycat Score range...