Using a unique money manager database that allows managers to identify their own investment styles, we examine 4,754 non mutual fund value- and growth-oriented portfolios over the period 1999-2003. Consistent with style definitions, we find that on average, growth funds have price-earnings...

As institutional investors have become more aggressive in deploying their capital, fund managers have become more creative with their product offerings. In this paper, we consider a new institutional fund of mutual funds, a portfolio that combines the “best-idea” stocks from two underlying...

The equity style orientation of an institutional portfolio has a large influence on its yearly returns. This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of portfolio "style drift" among U.S. equity mutual funds by developing new portfolio holdings-based measures of drift. These holdings-based...

We investigate why investors may be willing to participate in active management, notwithstanding that the average manager is likely to generate negative alpha after fees. We model the alpha an investor expects from a dynamic strategy of investing in a portfolio of active investment managers, and...

We develop an asset pricing model with flexible heterogeneity in asset demand across investors, designed to match institutional and household holdings. A portfolio choice model implies characteristics-based demand when returns have a factor structure and expected returns and factor loadings...

I present a dynamic investment model in which mutual funds' inferior performance is an equilibrium response to incentives rather than the consequence of low skills. In the model, a skilled (informed) manager responds to investors' flows, which are a convex function of performance relative to...

We study the equilibrium implications of a multi-asset economy in which asset managers are subject to different benchmarks, and demonstrate how heterogeneous benchmarking generates a mechanism through which fundamental shocks propagate across assets. Fluctuations in asset managers' capital...

We show that benchmark-linked convex incentives can lead risk-averse money managers aware of mispricing to over-invest in overpriced securities. In the model, the managers' risk-seeking behavior varies in response to the interaction of mispricing with convexity and benchmarking concerns....

We present a framework for deciding when to choose an alternative to passively investing in capitalization-weighted indices within any particular asset class. Five reasons are identified for seeking an alternative. Three of these reflect situations where a capitalization-weighted index is either...

This paper employs a proprietary data set of portfolio transitions to analyze the short run price-volume relation and its association with the long run performance of newly hired and terminated managers. Unique to our study is its focus on price dynamics that is not affected by potential...