This chapter provides a perspective on the rapidly developing literature on investment performance evaluation. I use the stochastic discount factor approach to present and critique current performance measurement techniques in a unified setting. I offer a number of suggestions to improve...

We examine the relative weights hedge fund investors attach to past information in the fund selection process. The weighting scheme appears inconsistent with econometric forecasting models that predict fund returns, alphas or Sharpe ratios. In particular, investor flows are highly sensitive to...

This paper investigates empirically whether uncertainty about the expected returns on the market portfolio can explain the performance of hedge funds both in the cross-section and over time. We measure uncertainty via volatility of aggregate volatility (VOV) and construct an investable version...

This paper investigates empirically whether uncertainty about volatility of the market portfolio can explain the performance of hedge funds both in the cross-section and over time. We measure uncertainty about volatility of the market portfolio via volatility of aggregate volatility (VOV) and...

Mandatory filings for UK hedge funds allow analysis of the effect of managerial employment networks on investment behavior. Employment in the same firm leads to significantly more similar investment behavior in terms of raw returns, abnormal performance (alpha), systematic risk (beta), and...

Recent research reveals that hedge fund returns exhibit a range of different,possibly non-linear pay-off patterns. It is difficult to qualify all these patternssimultaneously as being rational in a traditional framework for optimal financial decisionmaking. In this paper we present a simple...

Performance measurement is an area of crucial interest in asset valuation and investment management. High volatility as well as time aggregation of returns, amongst other characteristics, may distort the results of conventional measures of performance. In this work, we study the performance of...

Using merger announcements and applying methods from computational linguistics we find strong evidence that stock prices underreact to information in financial media. A one standard deviation increase in the media-implied probability of merger completion increases the subsequent 12-day return of...

We develop a new approach for evaluating performance across hedge funds. Our approach allows for performance comparisons between models that are misspecified – a common feature given the numerous factors that drive hedge fund returns. The empirical results show that the standard models used in...

We show that when only a few investors own a substantial portion of a hedge fund's net asset value, flow volatility increases because investors' exogenous, idiosyncratic liquidity shocks are not diversified away. Using confidential regulatory filings, we confirm that high investor concentration...