It is well known that asset allocation policy is the major determinant of fundperformance. However, there is substantial disagreement about the exactmagnitude of the contribution of asset allocation. Following the approach inIbbotson and Kaplan (2000), we use German and Swiss balanced mutualfund...

Based on a sample of 7,378 firms going public in the 1975-2005 period, we document a significant underperformance of IPO firms over the first year after going public, while there is virtually no underperformance thereafter. Moreover, by decomposing the Carhart-alpha we find that IPO...