We introduce a new quantitative approach that can be used as a diagnostic tool for measuring the stability of optimal portfolio weights for a very general set of mean-variance optimization methods. We present a derivation of the approach within a numerical analysis framework and use a few common...

The tendency of humans to shy away from using algorithms - even when algorithms observably outperform their human counterpart - has been referred to as algorithm aversion. We conduct an experiment to test for algorithm aversion in financial decision making. Participants acting as investors can...

Fund trades and prices vary systematically with the quarterly reporting cycle. Funds are more likely to complete the building of a position at quarter-end, which is when most funds report positions to investors, and begin building new positions afterwards. While some of the observed shift in...

Lower skill of the active management industry can imply greater fee revenue, value added, and investor performance. Such outcomes arise in a competitive equilibrium in which portfolio choices of active managers partially echo those of noise traders and also contain manager-specific noise. Both...

We link a seemingly biased trading behavior to equilibrium asset prices. U.S. equity mutual fund managers tend to sell both their big winners and big losers. This selling pressure pushes down current prices and leads to higher future returns; aggregating across funds, we nd that securities for...

Institutional investors delegate 85% of their alternative investments to external managers and funds-of-funds. Institutions using financial intermediaries have higher costs and underperform institutions investing internally in real assets, private equity, and hedge funds. Large investors rely...

In this paper, we investigate how mutual funds react to the distress of another fund in the same fund family. We test three alternative hypotheses: (1) funds help the distressed fund, (2) funds front-run the distressed fund improving their relative performance in the fund family and, (3) the...

We develop an analytical solution to the dynamic multi-period portfolio choice problem of an investor with risky liabilities and time varying investment opportunities. We use the model to compare the asset allocation of investors who take liabilities into account, assuming time varying returns...

We analyze the investment menus offered within 401(k) pension plans to the employees of the largest finance and non-finance firms. Within the sample of finance firms, we distinguish between finance firms that hire an external independent trustee and finance firms that serve also as a trustee of...