We examine the effects of a 2012 regulatory reform that mandated fee and performance disclosures for the investment options in 401(k) plans. We show that participants became significantly more attentive to expense ratios and short-term performance after the reform. The disclosure effects are...

Recordkeepers in DC pension plans are often paid indirectly in the form of revenue sharing from third-party funds on the menu. We show that these arrangements affect the investment menu of 401(k) plans. Revenue-sharing funds are more likely to be added to the menu and are less likely to be...

This paper investigates whether mutual fund families acting as trustees of 401(k) plans display favoritism toward their own funds. Using a hand-collected dataset on retirement investment options, we show that poorly-performing funds are less likely to be removed from and more likely to be added...

Takeover targets often experience substantial share price appreciations around public announcements of mergers and acquisitions. We analyze hedge fund and mutual fund holdings around takeover announcements to assess the differences in investment strategies across institutions. Our results...

Mortgage cramdown enabled bankruptcy judges to discharge the underwater portion of a mortgage during Chapter 13 bankruptcy before the Supreme Court disallowed this practice in 1993. We exploit the random assignment of cases to judges to quantify the ex-post effects of Chapter 13 bankruptcy over...

Investments in international fixed income securities are exposed to significant currency risks. We collect novel data on mutual fund currency derivatives and document that around 90% of U.S. international fixed income funds use currency forwards to manage their foreign exchange exposure. Funds'...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has historically been the most quoted stock index in the United States. It has several unique features. It uses price weights, it ignores cash dividend payments, and it also treats stock dividends, rights issues, and other corporate actions inconsistently. We...

We show that mutual funds worldwide provide substantial international exposure through their domestic holdings of multinationals. An average domestic fund's international exposure increases by 32 percentage points when we consider international corporate diversification. We find that funds with...

Frequent, yet uninformed, fund flows in Chilean pension plans generate substantial trading in currency markets due to the high allocation to international securities. These non-fundamental flows have a significant impact on the Chilean peso, which is estimated to have a relatively low price...

Companies that freeze defined benefit pension plans save the equivalent of 13.5 percent of the long-horizon payroll of current employees. Furthermore, firms with higher prospective accruals are more likely to freeze their plans. Cost savings would not be possible in a benchmark model in which i)...