Using a data set on more than 300 U.K. pension funds' asset holdings, this article provides a systematic investigation of the performance of managed portfolios across multiple asset classes. We find evidence of slow mean reversion in the funds' portfolio weights toward a common, time-varying...

This paper analyses the international equity holdings of a large panel of UK pension funds. We find considerable evidence of market timing activity, as illustrated by the funds' decision to scale back investments in the US stock market during the 1990s. To explain this, we jointly model...

The past few decades have seen a major shift from centralized to decentralized investment management by pension fund sponsors, despite the increased coordination problems that this brings. Using a unique, proprietary dataset of pension sponsors and managers, we identify two secular...

We document a positive relation between network centrality and risk-adjusted performance in a delegated investment management setting. More connected managers take more portfolio risk and receive higher investor flows, consistent with these managers improving their ability to exploit investment...