Locating Decision Rights: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry

Mutual fund advisors make portfolio decisions for their funds on a daily basis. We examine the location of these portfolio decision rights on two dimensions. First, we consider the geographic location of the decision rights. Second, we consider whether the decision rights remain with an advisor or are allocated to an independent sub-advisor. We argue that the allocation of portfolio decision rights involves a tradeoff between the opportunity cost of not matching decision rights with specific knowledge, and the agency costs associated with moving the decision rights to the specific knowledge. The patterns in the location of decision rights are consistent with the tradeoff being a meaningful determinant of the allocation of decision rights in the mutual fund industry. We also find that funds that are predicted to be sub-advised and are sub-advised outperform those that are predicted to be sub-advised but are not

Investor Behavior in the Mutual Fund Industry: Evidence from Gross Flows

Using a large sample of monthly gross flows from 1997 to 2003, we uncover several previously undocumented regularities in investor behavior. First, investor purchases and sales produce fund-level gross flows that are highly persistent. Persistence in fund flows dominates performance as a predictor of future fund flows. More importantly, failing to account for flow persistence leads to incorrect inferences with respect to the relation between performance and flows. Second, we document that investors react differently to performance depending on the type of fund, and that investor trading activity produces meaningful differences in the persistence of fund flows across mutual fund types. Third, at least some investors appear to evaluate and respond to mutual fund performance over much shorter time spans than previously assessed. Additionally, we document differences in the speed and magnitude of investors’ purchase and sales responses to performance

Investors Do Respond to Poor Mutual Fund Performance: Evidence from Inflows and Outflows

Abstract We examine the relation between mutual fund performance and gross flows for a large sample of actively managed U.S. mutual funds. Unlike previous studies that have only examined periods of generally increasing net flows, our sample includes periods of both increasing and decreasing net flows. We find that outflows are related to performance, with investors withdrawing money from poor performers. We also find that outflows and inflows respond asymmetrically to performance, outflows increase more aggressively following poor performance, and inflows increase more aggressively following good performance. Additionally, we find a symmetric performance net flow relation

β-catenin is a molecular switch that regulates transition of cell-cell adhesion to fusion

When a sperm and an oocyte unite upon fertilization, their cell membranes adhere and fuse, but little is known about the factors regulating sperm-oocyte adhesion. Here we explored the role of β-catenin in sperm-oocyte adhesion. Biochemical analysis revealed that E-cadherin and β-catenin formed a complex in oocytes and also in sperm. Sperm-oocyte adhesion was impaired when β-catenin-deficient oocytes were inseminated with sperm. Furthermore, expression of β-catenin decreased from the sperm head and the site of an oocyte to which a sperm adheres after completion of sperm-oocyte adhesion. UBE1-41, an inhibitor of ubiquitin-activating enzyme 1, inhibited the degradation of β-catenin, and reduced the fusing ability of wild-type (but not β-catenin-deficient) oocytes. These results indicate that β-catenin is not only involved in membrane adhesion, but also in the transition to membrane fusion upon fertilization

Abstracts from the 20th International Symposium on Signal Transduction at the Blood-Brain Barriers

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138963/1/12987_2017_Article_71.pd