Using data for more than 800 college and university endowment funds over 2003-2011, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the spending policies used in practice as well as how frequently and why those mandates are revised over time. Given the long-term and relatively static nature of the...

We study the level sets of value functions in expected utility stochastic optimization models. We consider optimal portfolio management models in complete markets with lognormally distributed prices as well as asset prices modeled as diffusion processes with nonlinear dynamics. Besides the...

Fair trade critiques the historical inequalities inherent in international trade and seeks to promote social justice by creating alternative networks linking marginalized producers (typically in the global South) with progressive consumers (typically in the global North). The first of its kind,...

This article employs survival/duration analysis to determine how subscriber levels affect cable networks' survival probabilities. Using piecewise-constant hazards estimation, we find that an additional one million subscribers increases a cable network's probability of survival in a given year by...

Economists have long debated how advertising should be treated in a rational-choice framework. Using unique data from the broadcast networks’ 1995 Fall Network Season, we find that sitcoms attract premia from advertisers, while news and police programs get discounted. We interpret our findings...

This article explores factors explaining program cast racial composition on television broadcast network programs. The roles of program type, cast composition, and viewer income on advertising revenue are examined. The analysis of the data yields several key findings. First, there is no bias...

We use university endowment funds to study the relationship between asset allocation decisions and performance in multiple asset class portfolios. Although endowments differ substantially in asset class composition, policy portfolio returns and volatilities are remarkably similar across the...

This article summarizes criteria used to identify investment talent in (especially hedge fund) managers and stresses the importance of identifying criteria that are not primarily soft but whose validity can be back tested.

We provide a simple argument that suggests that better-informed hedge funds choose to have less exposure to factor risk. Consistent with this argument, we find that hedge funds that exhibit lower R-squareds with respect to systematic factors have higher Sharpe ratios, higher information ratios,...