Using a new dataset on employment at SEC-registered investment advisors, we analyze which clienteles, asset classes, and strategies require more human capital, as well as the value of human capital to investment managers. Controlling for assets, quantity of human capital is not associated with...

I examine the role of human capital flows in the performance of the financial sector. This is an increasingly important question as government regulations are overhauled in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. I investigate the effect of labor market competition from hedge funds on the...

Abstract: Do political values influence investing? We answer this question using data on the political contributions and stock holdings of US investment magers. We find that mutual fund managers who make campaign donations to Democrats hold less of their portfolios (relative to non-donors or...

This paper examines how political connections affect risk exposure of financial institutions. Using a geography-based measure, I find that politically connected firms have higher leverage and their stocks have higher volatility and beta. Furthermore, prior to the 2008 financial crisis,...

The market for passive ETFs and passive ETF benchmarks has exploded in the past decade. ETF sponsors get index benchmarks from brand name index providers (e.g., S&P, Russell, MSCI), a large number of smaller providers, or internally. We find that benchmark and index provider characteristics are...

We investigate the returns to specialized knowledge in asset management, by comparing the performance of medical specialists and generalists in managing health care sector mutual funds. Specialist alpha is nearly 5% higher on an annualized basis, after controlling for fund and manager observable...