We investigate the relationship between net inflow to mutual bond funds that invest in emerging market economies (EMEs) and the past performance of these funds. Our main finding is that EME bond funds display a convex flow-performance relationship. In other words, past performance is a...

Using exogenous wealth shocks stemming from the collapse of the housing market, we show that managers who experience substantial losses in their home values subsequently reduce the risk in their delegated funds. The decline in fund risk comes through reductions in idiosyncratic risk and tracking...

Using survey data we analyze institutional investors' expectations about the future performance of fund managers and the impact of those expectations on asset allocation decisions. We find that institutional investors allocate funds mainly on the basis of fund managers' past performance and of...

Mutual funds must publish policies announcing how they generally vote on the different ballot items at the shareholder meetings of their portfolio firms. I manually collect 17,000 of these policies for a sample of 29 of the largest U.S. mutual fund families over 2006-2018. I find that voting...

Traditional portfolio optimization models specify placement of capital as rather irrevocably and fully at risk through investment horizon(s) or continuously. Under this constraint, asset class allocation typically serves as primary mode of diversification, pursuing risk moderation by seeking to...

We provide some new tools to evaluate trading strategies. When it is known that many strategies and combinations of strategies have been tried, we need to adjust our evaluation method for these multiple tests. Sharpe Ratios and other statistics will be overstated. Our methods are simple to...

Noted economist, Harry Markowitz (“Markowitz) received a Nobel Prize for his pioneering theoretical contributions to financial economics and corporate finance. His innovative work established the underpinnings for Modern Portfolio Theory — an investment framework for the selection and...

This paper contains facts and introductory concepts on Asset and Liability Management, Funds Transfer Pricing Systems and Funding Costs. Banks, hedge funds and more generally finance companies engage in complex capital market activities that involve trading of instruments in derivative or cash...