Using a large sample of institutional investors' investments in private equity funds raised between 1991 and 2011, we estimate the extent to which investors' skill affects their returns. Bootstrap analyses show that the variance of actual performance is higher than would be expected by chance,...

We evaluate the performance of limited partners' (LPs) private equity investments over time. Using a sample of 14,380 investments by 1,852 LPs in 1,250 buyout and venture funds started between 1991 and 2006, we find that the superior performance of endowment investors in the 1991-1998 period,...

Mutual fund investors are supposed to make long-term investments instead of striving for quick fortunes. However, the dynamics of funds' ability to generate abnormal returns over their lifetime is still an unattended issue. This paper provides evidence on the liability of newness and liability...

I provide evidence that fund managers who overweight firms with the most differentiated products ('monopolies') exhibit a superior risk-adjusted performance. This is consistent with information advantages due to a better understanding of qualitative information on a firm's competitive...

We analyze what a second business degree reveals about the investment behavior of professional investors. Specifically, we compare performance, risk, and style of equity mutual fund managers having a CFA designation and an MBA degree to managers with only one of these qualifications. We document...

Why do investors keep buying underperforming mutual funds? To address this issue, we develop a one-period principal-agent model with a representative investor and a fund manager in an asymmetric information framework. This model shows that the investors perception of the fund plays the key role...

The aim of this study is the analysis of so called socially responsible investments (SRI). First, the performance of SRI equity investment funds and equity indices is investigated using Jensen's alpha as performance measure. The analysis considers market timing strategies of the fund management...

We document that the speed of information dissemination within mutual fund families positively affects the performance of member funds. This suggests that the resulting benefits of higher information precision far outweigh free-riding costs associated with fast internal dissemination. The...

This paper shows that the stylized fact of average mutual fund underperformance documented in the literature stems from expansion periods when funds have statistically significant negative risk-adjusted performance and not recession periods when risk-adjusted fund performance is positive. These...

We study whether investors' demographic similarity to CEOs affects their investment decisions. Mutual fund managers are found to overweight firms led by CEOs who resemble them in terms of age, ethnicity and gender. This finding is robust to excluding educational and local ties and is supported...