Active fee is the ratio between the excess cost of active management over the index alternative and the fund's activity level. We suggest a simple model that explains active capital allocations in the presence of time-varying active fee. We show that investors respond in accordance with the...

Each year, the Investment Company Institute (ICI) conducts a telephone survey of US households to track households’ ownership of mutual funds and to gather information on their demographic and financial characteristics. The most recent survey was conducted from May to June 2020 and was based...

Each year, the Investment Company Institute (ICI) conducts a telephone survey of US households to track households’ ownership of mutual funds and to gather information on their demographic and financial characteristics. The most recent survey was conducted from May to June 2020 and was based...

We study the tradeoff between direct and indirect stock investments through equity mutual funds for a utility-maximizing investor. Whereas direct investments impose higher transaction costs on the formation of a well-diversified portfolio, mutual funds charge fees for their services. Our results...

Rationality would suggest that advice-seeking investors receive benefits from costly financial advice. However, evidence documenting these benefits for U.S. investors has so far been lacking. This paper is the first to document that U.S. mutual fund investors indeed receive one of the many...

This paper studies the economic impact of the emergence of FinTech platforms on financial intermediation. In China, platform distributions of mutual funds emerged in 2012 and grew quickly into a formidable presence. Utilizing the staggered fund entrance onto platforms, we find markedly increased...

Each year, the Investment Company Institute (ICI) conducts a telephone survey of US households to track households’ ownership of mutual funds and to gather information on their demographic and financial characteristics. The most recent survey was conducted from May to June 2022 and was fielded...

This paper presents results from the Investment Company Institute’s Annual Mutual Fund Shareholder Tracking Survey, which gathers information on mutual fund–owning households in the United States. In 2021, the survey found that 59.0 million US households, or 45.4 percent, owned mutual funds....