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 examines the effect of investor-level real-world investment constraints, including several which had not been studied before, on hedge fund performance and its persistence. Using a large consolidated database, we demonstrate that hedge fund performance persistence is significantly...

Classifying mandatory 13F stockholding filings by manager type reveals that hedge fund strategies are mostly contrarian, while mutual fund strategies are largely trend following. The only institutional performers---the 2/3 of hedge fund managers that are contrarian---earn alpha of 2.4% per year....

Classifying mandatory 13F stock-holding filings by manager type reveals that hedge fund strategies are mostly contrarian, while mutual fund strategies are largely trend following. The only institutional performers — the 2/3 of hedge fund managers that are contrarian — earn alpha of 2.4% per...

Fund managers can only exhibit selectivity through purchasing (selling) stocks that appreciate (depreciate) more frequently than expected from random occurrence, if stocks are incorrectly priced. We develop a method that can statistically identify fund managers that exhibit net, buy, and sell...

We study how mutual fund managers gain an edge in selecting stocks in an era of globalization. We use textual analysis to construct a new measure that captures a mutual fund's offshore exposure concentration through holding U.S. multinational firms. The proposed offshore concentration index...

I collect a registry-based dataset on the personal portfolios of Swedish mutual fund managers. The managers who invest personal money in the very same funds they professionally manage outperform the managers who do not. The main results are consistent with a Berk and Green (2004) equilibrium in...

We apply methods designed to measure mutual fund skill to a cross-section of traded funds that should not exhibit managerial portfolio selection skill: index funds. Surprisingly, these tests imply index fund skill exists, is persistent, and is in similar proportion as in active funds. We use the...

I collect a registry-based dataset on the personal portfolios of Swedish mutual fund managers. The managers who invest (a lot of) personal money in their own funds generate positive abnormal returns. Some managers are betting on their best ideas by investing personal money in individual...