Using the herding measures of Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1992) (LSV) and Frey, Herbst and Walter (2007) (FHW), we assess herding by French equity mutual funds between 1999 and 2005. We show that LSV herding amounts to 6.5% while FHW herding is about 2.5 times stronger. We observe that...

We hypothesize and find that the value of active management depends on characteristics of markets and investors. Using unique data, we focus on the performance of actual passive and active equity positions of an important category of institutional investors (defined benefit pension plans) from...

This paper analyses investment strategies of three types of institutional investors – pension funds, life insurers and non-life insurers – over the period 1999-2005. We use balance sheet and cash flow data, including purchases and sales of equity, fixed income and real estate. We trace asset...

Currency investors exhibit a tendency to cut risk by pairing both longs and shorts following losses and a weaker tendency to add risk following gains. By differentiating between position level, portfolio level and aggregate cross-portfolio losses in currency investments we demonstrate that this...

This paper introduces a new dataset on the composition of the investor base for government securities in the G20 advanced economies and the euro area. During the last decades, investors from abroad have increased their presence in government bond markets. The financial crisis broke this trend....

This paper examines foreign institutional investors' portfolio allocation and performance in U.S. securities. We test how information immobility, proxied by cultural and geographical distance between the investors' home markets and the U.S., influences portfolio strategies. Consistent with...

Reaching-for-yield — the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields — is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyses this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for reaching for yield among...

Actively managed mutual funds have distinct return distributions from their passive benchmarks and our theoretical analysis using tail-sensitive risk preferences suggests that active value and growth funds may serve to reduce downside risk and capture upside potential, respectively. Furthermore,...

For the period of 2006 to 2008, we collect Comment Letters issued by the SEC that question the application of US GAAP by US firms or the application of IFRS by European firms registered with the SEC. We investigate whether institutional investors react to the letters by changing their holdings...

We find substantial herding in U.S. corporate bonds among bond fund managers, much higher than that previously documented for the equity market. Herding is generally stronger among illiquid bonds, and buy herding and sell herding are driven by different factors. In particular, sell herding...