Mutual Fund Growth in Standard and Specialist Market Segments

We examine differences in the performance flow relationship (PFR) between different segments of the fund industry. Such differences can be caused by distinct mutual fund investors’ characteristics in different segments. In our empirical study of the US equity mutual fund industry in 1993-2001, we find a much more convex PFR in standard segments than in specialist segments. Furthermore, our results suggest that investors in the latter are more fee- and risk-aware than investors in standard segments. Overall, these results hint at investors in specialist segments being more sophisticated than investors in standard segments. Our results should have serious implications for the management of investment companies and for the behavior of fund managers.Mutual Funds, Performance Flow Relationship, Fund Growth, Investor Sophistication

Sex Matters: Gender Differences in a Professional Setting

This paper shows that gender di®erences exist in a professional setting where man-agers have a similar educational background and work experience. Using data from the U.S. mutual fund industry we find that female managers are more risk averse, follow less extreme and more consistent investment styles and trade less than male managers. Although female and male managers do not differ in average performance, female man-agers receive significantly lower inflows. This suggests that they might be stereotyped as less skilled. Furthermore, they mainly work in companies that are large, well established and that are located in less conservative states of the U.S

Mutual fund growth in standard an specialist market segments

This paper is concerned with differences in the performance-flow relationship (PFR) between standard and specialist market segments of the mutual fund industry. We expect differences in this relationship because investor characteristics might vary across different segments. Our results show that the PFR is more convex in standard segments as compared to specialist segments. Furthermore, investors in standard segments are less risk-averse and invest more in high-load funds than investors in specialist segments. Our findings are consistent with investors in standard segments being less sophisticated than investors in specialist segments and to rely more heavily on the advice of financial brokers, which is compensated for by load fees

Family Matters: The Performance Flow Relationship in the Mutual Fund Industry

The relationship between the performance of mutual funds and their subsequent growth is examined. The focus of our paper is on the influence of the position of a fund within its family. So far only the influence of the position of a fund within its segment on its subsequent inflows has been considered. Our empirical study of the US mutual fund market shows that fund growth depends on the relative position of a fund within its segment AND within its family. This leads to important incentives for fund managers.Mutual Funds, Fund Families, Performance Flow Relationship, Intra-Firm Competition

Why Managers Hold Shares of Their Firms: An Empirical Analysis

We examine the relationship between CEO ownership and stock market performance. Firms in which the CEO voluntarily holds a considerable share of outstanding stocks outperform the market by more than 10% p.a. after controlling for traditional risk factors. The effect is most pronounced in firms that are characterized by large managerial discretion of the CEO. The abnormal returns we document are one potential explanation why so many CEOs hold a large fraction of their own company’s stocks. We also examine several potential explanations why the existence of an owner CEO is not fully reflected in prices but leads to abnormal returns.CEO-Ownership, Asset Pricing with large shareholders.

On the usability of synthetic measures of mutual fund net-flows

Due to a lack of data availability, numerous empirical studies on mutual fund flows (e.g. Sirri/Tufano (1998)) analyze synthetically derived flow measures. We show how good these measures can explain actual flows. We compare the measures suggested in the literature with the actual net-flows of all German equity mutual funds. Our results show the appropriateness of the synthetic measures used in previous studies. Inference about the influence of past performance on flows is not biased by using synthetic instead of actual measures of fund flows. Thus, we offer a justification for the use of synthetic measures in performance flow studies

Family matters: Ranking within fund families and fund inflows

This paper examines the influence of the position of a fund within its family on its subsequent net-inflows. Our empirical study of the US equity mutual fund market shows that reaching a top position within the family leads to large inflows. These inflows accrue beyond those expected, given the performance of the fund in its respective market segment. The effect is much stronger in large families than in small families. We also find that inflows significantly increase if a fund moves into the top positions within its family from one year to another. These results lead to competition within the fund family and to important risk taking incentives for fund managers

Tournaments in mutual fund families

In this paper we examine intra-firm competition in the U.S. mutual fund industry. Our empirical study shows that fund managers within mutual fund families compete against each other. They adjust the risk they take dependent on the relative position within their fund family. The direction of the adjustment crucially hinges on the competitive situation within a family. Funds from small families behave in the opposite way than funds from large families. The results are very robust. They hold for different time periods and for different subgroups of funds

Sex matters: Gender bias in the mutual fund industry

We document significantly lower inflows in female-managed funds than in male-managed funds. This result is obtained with field data and with data from a laboratory experiment. We find no gender differences in performance. Thus, rational statistical discrimination is unlikely to explain the fund flow effect. We conduct an implicit association test and find that subjects with stronger gender bias according to this test invest significantly less in female-managed funds. Our results suggest that gender bias affects investment decisions and thus offer a new potential explanation for the low fraction of women in the mutual fund industry. The internet appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2939 . This paper was accepted by Lauren Cohen, finance. </jats:p

Rapid Trading bei deutschen Aktienfonds: Evidenz aus einer großen deutschen Fondsgesellschaft

Rapid Trading, d.h. der kurzfristige Kauf und Verkauf von Fondsanteilen durch Fondsinvestoren, steht im Widerspruch zur Fondskonzeption, wonach Fonds Instrumente zum langfristigen Vermögensaufbau darstellen, und kann zu negativen Auswirkungen auf die Performance führen. Wir verwenden Daten einer anonymen Fondsgesellschaft über Zuflüsse und Abflüsse und dokumentieren erstmals deutliche Hinweise auf Rapid Trading bei deutschen Aktienfonds. Es scheint vor allem dadurch getrieben zu werden, dass manche Anleger Fonds als spekulative, lotterie-artige Investments nutzen. Wir finden jedoch allenfalls schwache Evidenz für eine negative Auswirkung des Rapid Trading auf die Fondsperformance vor dem Fondsskandal in den USA in 2003, und keinerlei Einfluss danach. --Investmentfonds,Rapid Trading,Fondsskandal