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...

We survey more than 200 private equity (PE) managers from firms with $1.9 trillion of assets under management (AUM) about their portfolio performance, decision-making and activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that PE managers have significant incentives to maximize value, their actions...

Do returns in private equity (PE) rise or fall with fund scale? This question is increasingly urgent amid larger funds and new focus on the retail market. Since better managers can raise larger funds, the causal effect is difficult to identify. We develop an instrument based on gifts to...

Using a novel survey of retail global equity funds offered in Australasia, we provide new insights into the evolving landscape of responsible investing (RI) and potential greenwashing. Our analysis has three components. First, we surveyed asset managers to elicit an understanding of how and why...

Historical differences in compensation may influence how representatives from broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, and dual registrants select funds. Evidence from advertising content suggests that active-fund families promote characteristics such as recent returns that are both...

Limited partners allocate capital into venture capital funds with the expectation of a risk-return profile matching the fund’s investment style in terms of startup investment stage, location, and industry. This paper draws a connection between style drifts in these three dimensions and the...

We provide the first analysis of the risk exposure and consequent risk-adjusted performance of impact investing funds, private market funds with dual financial and social goals. We introduce a new dataset of impact fund cash flows constructed from financial statements. When accounting for market...

We survey the literature on the private equity partnership arrangement from the perspective of an outside investor (limited partner). We examine how the partnership arrangement fits into a broader portfolio of investments, and we consider the methods and difficulties in performance measurement,...

In this paper, we show that the way in which fund managers are compensated can, under plausible conditions, lead them to act in a way that does not maximise the wellbeing of their clients. Due to performance bonuses in fund managers' rewards, there is a highly non-linear relationship between the...