This paper investigates whether the relationship between investment banks and their affiliated funds helps the funds deliver superior performance due to the information advantage or whether it costs the funds due to the conflict of interest. Using firms with class-action lawsuits, I examine...

A popular strategy to assess mutual funds is to look at past returns and rank funds based on their risk and return characteristics. This simple approach has its advantages but it is uni-dimensional in nature and misses important characteristics that may impact future returns. We propose...

Mutual fund plays a crucial role in the Indian economy. Mutual funds are considered to be the vehicle for mobilization and channelization of savings from individual investors to towards the various capital market instruments. Evaluation of the performance of mutual funds particularly is of a...

Using data collected from equity mutual fund reports filed by single-fund registrants to the Securities and Exchange Commission, I study the determinants of brokerage commissions paid by fund managers when they buy or sell securities and investigate the role these commissions play in fund...

This paper analyzes valuation dynamics of ‘Unicorn' companies, that is, privately held and venture capital-backed companies with a valuation of at least $1 billion. In recent years, Unicorns have received substantial investments from U.S. mutual funds, whose public reporting allows for rare...

This paper investigates the effect of stable business relationships between brokerage firms and mutual funds on analyst recommendations. Although the amount of commission fees a brokerage firm receives is the primary factor affecting recommendation aggressiveness of the brokerage firm's...

The Italian mutual fund industry is in a severe crisis: its net assets have been experiencing a constant decrease since 1999, from 42% of GDP to 8% in 2011. Its returns are poor, too. An investment in mutual funds has accumulated in its 28-year life a loss larger than the initial asset value, if...

This paper questions the contribution that socially responsible (SR) screening makes to mutual fund performance. We propose a new decomposition of the variability of SR mutual fund returns making it possible to isolate the contribution of SR screening and compare it with the other traditional...

Private equity funds hold assets that are hard to value. Managers may have an incentive to distort reported valuations if these are used by investors to decide on commitments to subsequent funds managed by the same firm. Using a large dataset of buyout and venture funds, we test for the presence...

This paper investigates the effect of stable business relationships between brokerage firms and mutual funds on analyst recommendations. Although the amount of commission fees a brokerage firm receives is the primary factor affecting recommendation aggressiveness of the brokerage firm's...