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,...

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...

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...

In addition to premiums, investment income is one of the two main sources of capital for property-casualty (P/C) insurance companies. This study investigates short-term equity trading behavior of P/C insurers in the United States in 2007 and 2008, and finds that over 27 percent of non-group...

We provide evidence regarding mutual funds' motivation to hold lottery stocks. Funds with higher managerial ownership invest less in lottery stocks, suggesting that managers themselves do not prefer such stocks. The evidence instead supports that managers cater to fund investors' preference for...

We provide evidence regarding mutual funds' motivation to hold lottery stocks. Funds with higher managerial ownership invest less in lottery stocks, suggesting that managers themselves do not prefer such stocks. The evidence instead supports that managers cater to fund investors' preference for...

Investment fund managers make asset allocation decisions on behalf of a significant segment of US households. To elucidate the incentives they operate under, as well as the income and career risks they face, we construct a unique and novel dataset, which encompasses detailed information on the...

[We develop a performance evaluation model that incorporates the factors proposed by Huij and Derwall (2008) and a fund-specific benchmark to analyse the performance of US fixed income funds. Using the full sample, and accounting for the possibility of false discoveries we find fund management...

This thesis consists of three essays on the interaction of investor clienteles and mutual fund behavior. The first essay (Cici, Kempf, and Sorhage 2015, Do Financial Advisors Provide Tangible Benefits for Investors? Evidence from Tax-Motivated Mutual Fund Flowsʺ) adds to the literature on fund...