Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have emerged as among the most important players in global financial markets. With an estimated $3 trillion at present, the collective assets at their disposal are expected to reach or surpass $7.5 trillion by 2012. Copyright (c) 2008 Morgan Stanley.

This paper documents the level of portfolio manager ownership in the funds they manage and examines whether higher ownership is associated with improved future performance. Almost half of all managers have ownership stakes in their funds, though the absolute investment is modest. Future...

Using a new database, we study fees charged by 46,580 mutual fund classes offered for sale in 18 countries, which account for about 86% of the world fund industry in 2002. We examine management fees, total expense ratios, and total shareholder costs (which include load charges). Fees vary...

We study mutual fund mergers between 1999 and 2001 to understand the role and effectiveness of fund boards. Some fund mergers - typically across-family fund mergers - benefit target shareholders but are costly to target fund directors. We examine whether certain governance structures relate to...

We examine the investment behavior of market participants within different international markets (i.e., U.S., Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan), specifically with regard to their tendency to exhibit herd behavior. We find no evidence of herding on the part of market participants in the...

For a sample of 1163 mutual funds started over the period 1979-1992, we find that fund initiations are positively related to the level of assets invested in and the capital gains embedded in other funds with the same objective, the fund family's prior performance, the fraction of funds in the...

In this paper I examine the impact of mutual fund manager replacement on subsequent fund performance. Using a sample of 393 domestic equity and bond fund managers that were replaced over the 1979-1991 period, for the underperformers I document significant improvements in post-replacement...