Public funds underperformed endowments and foundations over the period 1987-2002, as reported in Ennis [2003]. Since 2003, however, public funds outperformed endowments after accounting for fees and costs. Public funds' outperformance over this period occurred in the volatile markets since 2008....

High market volatility has driven the development of investment strategies advertised to deliver reduced risk without reduced return. The “low-volatility” equity anomaly (low-risk stocks may have similar or greater returns than high-risk stocks) is best exploited by investors as part of the...

Inflation risk is greatest in times of national or global stress; inflation risk is a form of a “tail risk.” A traditional portfolio of stocks and bonds is exposed to inflation risk. The specific nature of an investor's liabilities and spending determines inflation sensitivity beyond that of...

Enhanced indexing is sometimes proposed as an alternative to traditional active or passive management; sometimes it is described as something between the two. Enhanced index managers are said to make small and careful bets relative to an index — not “swinging for the fences” but rather...

Active management plays a critical, positive role in the efficiency of capital markets. In the first study of its kind to use data on institutionally-focused products, we find that, while a large percentage of active equity managers earn enough alpha on average to cover their costs, less than 2%...

Alternative investments — private equity, real estate and hedge funds — have natural advantages in risk and return over traditional stock and bond investments. A large allocation to alternatives relative to current institutional practice is needed for a material contribution an institutional...

Discussions of ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing tend to be complex and vague at the same time, in an attempt to serve the potentially conflicting interests of activists, investment managers and consultants, stakeholders and asset owners. Impact (“doing good”) is difficult...