We investigate the occurrence of greenwashing in the US mutual fund industry. Using panel regression methods, we test whether there exist differences in the portfolio investment behaviors of active equity funds that are self-declared to be driven by ESG motives when compared to all other funds....

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,...

In this paper I investigate the investment behavior of SRI investors based on SRI mutual fund flows. Specifically, I analyze how SRI investors react to past performance and ethical standards. This empirical study shows that over the years along with the development of the SRI fund market, the...

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...

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...

Using data on the portfolio holdings and income of millions of U.S. retirement investors, I find that positive and persistent shocks to income lead to a significant increase in the equity share of investor portfolios, while increases in financial wealth due to realized returns lead to a small...

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...

This paper examines performance of 95 actively managed U.S. sector equity mutual funds from 29 fund families relative to their peer exchange-traded funds, SPDR sector ETFs, in the period of 2008 to 2017. Our results do not show considerable evidence that actively managed sector mutual funds...

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...