We introduce an information-based fragility measure for GMM models that are potentially misspecified and unstable. A large fragility measure signifies a GMM model's lack of internal refutability (weak power of specification tests) and external validity (poor out-of-sample fit). The fragility of...

Lawyers now serve as executives in 44% of corporations. Although endowed with gatekeeping responsibilities, executive lawyers face increasing pressure to use time on strategic efforts. In a lawyer fixed effects model, we quantify that lawyers are half as important as CEOs in explaining variances...

We empirically analyze the nature of returns to scale in active mutual fund management. We find strong evidence of decreasing returns at the industry level: As the size of the active mutual fund industry increases, a fund's ability to outperform passive benchmarks declines. At the fund level,...

We develop a model in which an entrepreneur learns about the average profitability of a private firm before deciding whether to take the firm public. In this decision, the entrepreneur trades off diversification benefits of going public against benefits of private control. The model predicts...

We study tradeoffs among active mutual funds' characteristics. In both our equilibrium model and the data, funds with larger size, lower expense ratio, and higher turnover hold more-liquid portfolios. Portfolio liquidity, a concept introduced here, depends not only on the liquidity of the...

We model investing that considers environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. In equilibrium, green assets have low expected returns because investors enjoy holding them and because green assets hedge climate risk. Green assets nevertheless outperform when positive shocks hit the ESG...

We model optimal fund turnover in the presence of time-varying profit opportunities. Our model predicts a positive relation between an active fund's turnover and its subsequent benchmark-adjusted return. We find such a relation for equity mutual funds. This time-series relation between turnover...