IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v27y2013i2p219-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Investment Strategies of Sovereign Wealth Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Shai Bernstein
  • Josh Lerner
  • Antoinette Schoar

Abstract

Sovereign wealth funds have emerged as major investors in corporate and real resources worldwide. After an overview of their magnitude, we consider the institutional arrangements under which many of the sovereign wealth funds operate. We focus on a specific set of agency problems that is of first-order importance for these funds: that is, the direct involvement of political leaders in the management process. We show that sovereign wealth funds with greater involvement of political leaders in fund management are associated with investment strategies that seem to favor short-term economic policy goals in their respective countries at the expense of longer-term maximization of returns. Sovereign wealth funds face several other issues, like how best to cope with demands for transparency, which can allow others to copy their investment strategies, and how to address the problems that arise with sheer size, like the difficulties of scaling up investment strategies that only work with a smaller value of assets under investment. In the conclusion, we discuss how various approaches cultivated by effective institutional investors worldwide -- from investing in the best people to pioneering new asset classes to compartmentalizing investment activities -- may provide clues as to how sovereign wealth funds might address these issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Shai Bernstein & Josh Lerner & Antoinette Schoar, 2013. "The Investment Strategies of Sovereign Wealth Funds," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 219-238, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:27:y:2013:i:2:p:219-38
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.27.2.219
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.27.2.219
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/app/2702-0219_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ludovic Phalippou & Oliver Gottschalg, 2009. "The Performance of Private Equity Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1747-1776, April.
    2. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1127-1161.
    3. Tirole, Jean, 1994. "The Internal Organization of Government," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, January.
    4. Steven N. Kaplan & Antoinette Schoar, 2005. "Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1791-1823, August.
    5. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1997. "A Theory of Misgovernance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1289-1332.
    6. Paul A. Gompers & Andrew Metrick, 2001. "Institutional Investors and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 229-259.
    7. Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1994. "Politicians and Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 995-1025.
    8. Josh Lerner & Antoinette Schoar & Wan Wongsunwai, 2007. "Smart Institutions, Foolish Choices: The Limited Partner Performance Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 731-764, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kasper Meisner Nielsen, 2011. "The Return to Direct Investment in Private Firms: New Evidence on the Private Equity Premium Puzzle," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(3), pages 436-463, June.
    2. Sapienza, Paola, 2002. "What Do State-Owned Firms Maximize? Evidence from the Italian Banks," CEPR Discussion Papers 3168, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Andrew Metrick & Ayako Yasuda, 2011. "Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: a Survey," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 619-654, September.
    4. Nadauld, Taylor D. & Sensoy, Berk A. & Vorkink, Keith & Weisbach, Michael S., 2019. "The liquidity cost of private equity investments: Evidence from secondary market transactions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 158-181.
    5. Lerner, Josh & Mao, Jason & Schoar, Antoinette & Zhang, Nan R., 2022. "Investing outside the box: Evidence from alternative vehicles in private equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 359-380.
    6. Fang, Lily & Ivashina, Victoria & Lerner, Josh, 2015. "The disintermediation of financial markets: Direct investing in private equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 160-178.
    7. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    8. Robinson, David T. & Sensoy, Berk A., 2016. "Cyclicality, performance measurement, and cash flow liquidity in private equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 521-543.
    9. Buchner, Axel & Wagner, Niklas F., 2017. "Rewarding risk-taking or skill? The case of private equity fund managers," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 14-32.
    10. Brown, Gregory W. & Gredil, Oleg R. & Kaplan, Steven N., 2019. "Do private equity funds manipulate reported returns?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 267-297.
    11. Steffen, Bjarne & Karplus, Valerie & Schmidt, Tobias S., 2022. "State ownership and technology adoption: The case of electric utilities and renewable energy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(6).
    12. Maiia Sleptcova & Heidi Falkenbach, 2021. "Managerial Skill and European PERE Fund Performance," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 665-690, May.
    13. Aleksandar Andonov & Roman Kräussl & Joshua Rauh, 2018. "The Subsidy to Infrastructure as an Asset Class," NBER Working Papers 25045, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Ron Bird & Harry Liem & Susan Thorp, 2011. "Private Equity: Strategies for Improving Performance," Working Paper Series 12, The Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Market Dysfunctionality, University of Technology, Sydney.
    15. Damette, Olivier & Kouki, Imen, 2022. "Political influence and banking performance: Evidence from the African countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 200-207.
    16. Aleksandar Andonov & Roman Kräussl & Joshua Rauh & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2021. "Institutional Investors and Infrastructure Investing [Pension fund asset allocation and liability discount rates]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(8), pages 3880-3934.
    17. Robert S. Harris & Tim Jenkinson & Steven N. Kaplan & Ruediger Stucke, 2020. "Has Persistence Persisted in Private Equity? Evidence from Buyout and Venture Capital Funds," Working Papers 2020-167, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    18. Hakenes, Hendrik & Schnabel, Isabel, 2006. "The Threat of Capital Drain: A Rationale for Public Banks?," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 107, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    19. David T. Robinson & Berk A. Sensoy, 2012. "Do Private Equity Managers Earn Their Fees? Compensation, Ownership, and Cash Flow Performance," NBER Working Papers 17942, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Arthur Korteweg & Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Risk‐Adjusting the Returns to Venture Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1437-1470, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:27:y:2013:i:2:p:219-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.