Mutual fund managers may decide to deviate from a well-diversified portfolio and concentrate their holdings in industries where they have informational advantages. In this paper, we study the relation between the industry concentration and the performance of actively managed U.S. mutual funds...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>We propose a new definition of skill as general cognitive ability to pick stocks or time the market. We find evidence for stock picking in booms and market timing in recessions. Moreover, the same fund managers that pick stocks well in expansions also time the market well in...</p>

We show theoretically that the responsiveness of a fund manager's portfolio allocations to changes in public information decreases in the manager's skill. We go on to estimate this sensitivity ("RPI") as the "R"-super-2 of the regression of changes in a manager's portfolio holdings on changes in...

A previous study finds evidence to support selection ability among active fund investors for equity funds listed in 1982. Using a large sample of equity funds, I find evidence that funds that receive more money subsequently perform significantly better than those that lose money. This effect is...

This paper provides direct evidence supporting the tax-loss selling hypothesis as an explanation of the January effect. Examining turn-of-the-year return and volume patterns for municipal bond closed-end funds, which are held mostly by tax-sensitive individual investors, we document a January...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>Participants in defined contribution (DC) retirement plans rarely adjust their portfolio allocations, suggesting that their investment choices and consequent money flows are sticky and not discerning. However, participants’ inertia could be offset by DC plan sponsors, who...</p>