We document large variation in net-of-fee performance across public pension funds investing in the same private equity fund. In aggregate, these differences imply that the pensions in our sample would have earned $44 billion more – equivalent to $8.50 more per $100 invested – had they each...

We study how investment fees vary within private-capital funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds and those in high demand are...

Private equity funds tend to select small firms with low EBITDA multiples. Public equities with these characteristics have high risk-adjusted returns after controlling for common factors. Hold-to-maturity accounting of portfolio net asset value eliminates the majority of measured risk. A passive...

This paper examines asset fire sales, and institutional price pressure more generally, in equity markets, using market prices of mutual fund transactions caused by capital flows from 1980 to 2003. Funds experiencing large outflows (inflows) tend to decrease (increase) existing positions, which...