In their seminal paper on bond fund performance, Blake, Elton and Gruber (1993) state that survivorship bias is … unimportant for this market segment. Many bond fund studies have since been published without treating survivorship bias despite … disappearance of bond funds comprehensively. As key determinants we identify fund size and flows. Compared to equity funds, returns …

track their benchmarks, but that Investment Grade corporate bond ETFs underperform their benchmarks and High Yield corporate … bond ETFs even severely underperform their benchmarks. We provide evidence that the transaction costs of the underlying …

We are the first to analyze bond mutual funds' permission and use of complex investment practices like derivatives … most complex investments do not affect fund performance or risk. However, interest rate futures (IRF) are harmful to bond … funds. Bond funds engaging in IRF (45.8% of all bond funds) underperform nonusers by economically meaningful 51 basis point …

on mutual fund managers when bond prices drop, ex-post. Empirical evidence supports this hypothesis. Fund inflows to …