We use a comprehensive data set of funds-of-funds to investigate performance, risk, and capital formation in the hedge fund industry from 1995 to 2004. While the average fund-of-funds delivers alpha only in the period between October 1998 and March 2000, a subset of funds-of-funds consistently...

It is well known that the pro forma performance of a sample of investment funds contains biases. These biases are documented in Brown, Goetzmann, Ibbotson, and Ross (1992) using mutual funds as subjects. The organization structure of hedge funds, as private and often offshore vehicles, makes...