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,...

Using detailed mutual fund holdings in the US market, we estimate active mutual fund managers’ loss aversion as a function of both funds’ past performance and asset allocations. We document a substantial variation in loss aversion over time. We further find managers' loss aversion is higher...

Using data from surveys as well as as real transactions we analyze which and why investors choose funds with performance fees even though these funds may be more expensive. According to agency theory, performance fees could incentivize managers to achieve better returns, but they could also...

This paper studies the investment behavior of investors and fund managers within the mutual funds industry. We find that investors are biased in their fund purchase decisions in a way described by prospect theory: The prospect theory value predicts future fund flows, even though it is not...

This paper examines whether investors receive compensation for holding crash-sensitive stocks. We capture the crash sensitivity of stocks by their lower tail dependence (LTD) with the market based on copulas. We find that stocks with strong LTD have higher average future returns than stocks with...

We systematically study the value of the information contained in closed-end fund (CEF) premiums. We parametrically estimate CEF expected returns as a function of the history of CEF premiums, in addition to the current premium, and buy the quintile of funds with the highest expected returns and...

We explore the properties of equity mutual funds that experience a loss of assets after poor performance. We document that both inflows and outflows are less sensitive to performance because performance-sensitive investors leave or decide not to invest after bad performance. Consistent with the...