Essays on Hedge Fund Performance

This dissertation consists of two essays on hedge fund performance. The first essay models exposure of hedge fund to risk factors and examines time-varying performance of hedge funds. From existing models such as ABS-factor model, SAC-factor model, and four-factor model, we extract the best six factors for each hedge fund portfolio by investment strategy. Then, we find combinations of risk factors that most explain variance in performance of each hedge fund portfolio by investment strategy. The results show instability of coefficients in the performance attribution regression. Incorporating time-varying factor exposure feature would be the best way to appropriately measure hedge fund performance. Furthermore, the optimal models with fewer factors exhibit greater explanatory power than existing models. Time-varying model customized by investment strategy of hedge funds would clearly show how sensitive to risk factors managements of hedge funds are according to market conditions In the second essay, we first conduct multinomial logistic regression analysis to see how hedge fund attributes affect hedge fund managers‟ decision of whether to offer a hurdle rate and/or high-watermark. Hedge funds taking more risky position and collecting high performance fee are more likely to offer hurdle rate and/or high-watermark. Second, we conduct cross-sectional regression analysis to see how hedge fund attributes affect hedge fund performance. Our results indicate that hurdle rate and high-watermark are restrictions for hedge fund managers on collecting fee and that hurdle rate and high-watermark cannot be considered to be incentives. We also find that hedge funds collecting high performance fee and having large amount of funds are more likely to outperform those collecting low performance fee and having small amount of funds. While conducting cross-sectional regression analysis, we use three different measures of hedge fund performance: alpha, palpha and Sharpe ratio. Alpha and palpha are obtained from the optimal model by investment strategy controlling for hedge fund risk associated with risk factors different by its investment strategy. In addition, we control for survivorship and instant history biases. So, our results from alpha and palpha are more credible than those of Soydemir et al. (2012) which employs only Sharpe ratio

Optimal Investment and Consumption for an Insurer with High-Watermark Performance Fee

The optimal investment and consumption problem is investigated for an insurance company, which is subject to the payment of high-watermark fee from profit. The objective of insurance company is to maximize the expected cumulated discount utility up to ruin time. The consumption behavior considered in this paper can be viewed as dividend payment of the insurance company. It turns out that the value function of the proposed problem is the viscosity solution to the associated HJB equation. The regularity of the viscosity is discussed and some asymptotic results are provided. With the help of the smooth properties of viscosity solutions, we complete the verification theorem of the optimal control policies and the potential applications of the main result are discussed

Risk and expected returns of private equity investments : evidence based on market prices

We estimate the risk and expected returns of private equity investments based on the market prices of exchange traded funds of funds that invest in unlisted private equity funds. Our results indicate that the market expects unlisted private equity funds to earn abnormal returns of about one to two percent. We also find that the market expects listed private equity funds to earn zero to marginally negative abnormal returns net of fees. Both listed and unlisted private equity funds have market betas close to one and positive factor loadings on the Fama-French SMB factor. Private equity fund returns are positively correlated with GDP growth and negatively correlated with the credit spread. Finally, we find that market returns of exchange traded funds of funds and listed private equity funds predict changes in self-reported book values of unlisted private equity funds

Portfolio delegation under short-selling constraints

In this paper we study delegated portfolio management when the manager's ability to short-sell is restricted. Contrary to previous results, we show that under moral hazard, linear performance-adjusted contracts do provide portfolio managers with incentives to gather information. The risk-averse manager's optimal effort is an increasing function of her share in the portfolio's return. This result affects the risk-averse investor's optimal contract decision. The first best, purely risk-sharing contract is proved to be suboptimal. Using numerical methods we show that the manager's share in the portfolio return is higher than the „rst best share. Additionally, this deviation is shown to be: (i) increasing in the manager's risk aversion and (ii) larger for tighter short-selling restrictions. When the constraint is relaxed the optimal contract converges towards the first best risk sharing contract.Third best effort, linear performance-adjusted contracts, short-selling constraints

The Impact of Leverage on Hedge Fund Performance

In this paper, the effect of leverage on hedge fund performance is measured. TASS data from 1994 to 2016 are used to measure the impact of leverage on hedge fund performance. Three hedge fund performance measurements are regressed on degree of leverage with eight control variables including fund size, strategies, and use of derivatives. The results show that for strategyadjusted return as a performance measurement, hedge fund leverage has a negative impact on fund performance. Also there is evidence of diseconomies of scale where funds with medium-sized assets under management (AUM) tend to show better performance than funds with high AUM. No significant relation between use of leverage and performance is observed for other performance measurements, including the Fung and Hsieh seven and eight-factor alpha and style-adjusted return

The value-added of investable hedge fund indices

This paper empirically investigates the risk and performance of three types of alternative beta products over the January 2002 to September 2009 time period: funds of hedge funds (FHFs), investable hedge fund indices (IHFIs), and hedge fund replication strategies (HFRS). We show that IHFIs are true alternative beta products with high correlations and beta to noninvestable hedge fund indices. Our results further suggest that, in a best case scenario, IHFIs outperform FHFs and HFRS on a risk-adjusted basis. However, in the worst case scenario, IHFIs underperform both investments. If we take the average of all IHFIs, we find they perform equally well as FHFs. Hence, IHFIs constitute a solid alternative to FHF investments, while costing substantially less, and offering generally more transparency and liquidity. We propose that fee-sensitive investors especially should consider taking a core-satellite approach to their hedge fund portfolio, with the core represented by cheap passive hedge fund beta through IHFIs, and the satellite represented by more expensive and actively managed alphagenerating FHFs. --Hedge funds,investable hedge fund indices,alternative beta,funds of hedge funds,hedge fund replication,Omega ratio

Entry & Exit: The Lifecyle of a Hedge Fund

Using data from the TASS/Tremont hedge fund database, this article performs an empirical analysis of the evolution of the hedge fund industry within an industrial organization framework.Hedge Funds, Entry, Exit, Evolution, Hedge Fund Performance, Hedge Fund Styles, Incumbents, Entrants, Lifecyle, Competition, Market for Ideas,

An experimental study of the impact of competition for Other People's Money: the portfolio manager market

In this paper we experimentally investigate the impact that competing for funds has on the risk-taking behavior of laboratory portfolio managers compensated through an option-like scheme according to which the manager receives (most of) the compensation only for returns in excess of pre-specified strike price. We find that such a competitive environment and contractual arrangement lead, both in theory and in the lab, to inefficient risk taking behavior on the part of portfolio managers. We then study various policy interventions, obtained by manipulating various aspects of the competitive environment and the contractual arrangement, e.g., the Transparency of the contracts offered, the Risk Sharing component in the contract linking portfolio managers to investors, etc. While all these interventions would induce portfolio managers, at equilibrium, to efficiently invest funds in safe assets, we find that, in the lab, Transparency is most effective in incentivising managers to do so. Finally, we document a behavioral “Other People’s Money” effect in the lab, where portfolio managers tend to invest the funds of their investors in a more risky manner than their Own Money, even when it is not in either the investors’ or the managers’ interest to do so