For funds with high incentives and more opportunities to inflate returns, we find that (i) returns during December are significantly higher than returns during the rest of the year, even after controlling for risk in both the time series and the cross-section; and (ii) this December spike is...

This article characterizes the systematic risk exposures of hedge funds using buy-and-hold and option-based strategies. Our results show that a large number of equity-oriented hedge fund strategies exhibit payoffs resembling a short position in a put option on the market index and therefore bear...