In this paper, I examine the flow and performance of mutual funds in Brazil and their portfolio allocations during the global financial crisis. First, I show that mutual funds exposed to deposits and securities issued by small banks suffered significant outflows, due to the increased risk...

Heterogeneous beliefs among market participants can lead to questionable speculative trading that goes beyond any risk-sharing motives. We demonstrate that such unwarranted betting behavior in market equilibrium can be mitigated by introducing nonlinear pricing for ambiguous contracts, without...

This study assesses the effect of fund-level and systemic factors on the performance of mutual funds in the context of changing market conditions. A Markov regime-switching model is used to analyze the performance of 33 South African equity mutual funds from 2006 to 2019. From the results, fund...

We study banks' incentive to pool assets of heterogeneous quality when investors evaluate pools by extrapolating from limited sampling. Pooling assets of heterogeneous quality induces dispersion in investors' valuations without affecting their average. Prices are determined by market clearing...

We create a simulated financial market and examine the effect of different levels of active and passive investment on fundamental market efficiency. In our simulated market, active, passive, and random investors interact with each other through issuing orders. Active and passive investors select...

Purpose Stirred by scant regard for market phases in portfolio performance assessments, the current paper investigates the active versus passive investment strategies under the bull and bear market conditions in emerging markets focusing on South Africa as a case study....

In recent years, exchange-traded fund (ETF) markets have grown exponentially due to their rising popularity amongst retail investors with a preference for passive investments. However, the effect of this rising popularity on the performance of ETF markets remains understudied. Therefore, the...

Using a unique database that includes publicly disclosed fund holdings at the end of the quarter as well as the holdings in all non-publicly disclosed months, we found that some funds could alter their portfolios in publicly disclosed months to artificially increase their Active Share scores and...