IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/finmgt/v50y2021i1p47-73.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Career concerns and peer effects in institutional tournaments: Evidence from ECB reserve currency portfolios

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin Sahel
  • Antonio Scalia
  • Luana Zaccaria

Abstract

Using data on European Central Bank's (ECB's) reserve currency portfolios, we find that money managers react to relative rankings (i.e., own vs. peers’ performance) by adjusting portfolio active risk levels measured ex ante by actual deviations from their benchmark. This occurs in the absence of explicit incentives as no monetary reward is promised for winning this “tournament” among portfolio managers. We collect information on managers’ characteristics, including age, education, tenure, salary, and career path, and investigate the role played by implicit incentives. We provide evidence that both individual career concerns and institutional peer pressure contribute to the documented relationship between ranking and risk taking.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Sahel & Antonio Scalia & Luana Zaccaria, 2021. "Career concerns and peer effects in institutional tournaments: Evidence from ECB reserve currency portfolios," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 47-73, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:finmgt:v:50:y:2021:i:1:p:47-73
    DOI: 10.1111/fima.12289
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.12289
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/fima.12289?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philipp Ager & Leonardo Bursztyn & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2016. "Killer Incentives: Status Competition and Pilot Performance during World War II," NBER Working Papers 22992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jennifer Brown, 2011. "Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Incentive Effects of Competing with Superstars," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(5), pages 982-1013.
    3. Barry, Christopher B & Starks, Laura T, 1984. "Investment Management and Risk Sharing with Multiple Managers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(2), pages 477-491, June.
    4. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    5. Nalebuff, Barry J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1983. "Information, Competition, and Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(2), pages 278-283, May.
    6. Jongha Lim & Berk A. Sensoy & Michael S. Weisbach, 2016. "Indirect Incentives of Hedge Fund Managers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 871-918, April.
    7. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June.
    8. Sahel, Benjamin & Scalia, Antonio, 2011. "Ranking, risk-taking and effort: an analysis of the ECB's foreign reserves management," Working Paper Series 1377, European Central Bank.
    9. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    10. K. J. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2009. "How Active Is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3329-3365, September.
    11. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    12. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    13. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    14. Erik R. Sirri & Peter Tufano, 1998. "Costly Search and Mutual Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1589-1622, October.
    15. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "Career Concerns of Mutual Fund Managers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 389-432.
    16. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Social Incentives in the Workplace," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 417-458.
    17. Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 1990. "Relative Performance Evaluation for Chief Executive Officers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 30, April.
    18. Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1992. "Optimal Incentive Contracts in the Presence of Career Concerns: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 468-505, June.
    19. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2006. "How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2370, Yale School of Management, revised 01 May 2009.
    20. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    21. Dow, James & Gorton, Gary, 1997. "Noise Trading, Delegated Portfolio Management, and Economic Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1024-1050, October.
    22. Evans, Richard Burtis & Prado, Melissa Porras & Zambrana, Rafael, 2020. "Competition and cooperation in mutual fund families," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 168-188.
    23. Sharpe, W F, 1981. "Decentralized Investment Management," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 217-234, May.
    24. Marianne Bertrand & Robin Burgess & Arunish Chawla & Guo Xu, 2020. "The Glittering Prizes: Career Incentives and Bureaucrat Performance," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 626-655.
    25. Busse, Jeffrey A., 2001. "Another Look at Mutual Fund Tournaments," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 53-73, March.
    26. Jiaping Qiu, 2003. "Termination Risk, Multiple Managers and Mutual Fund Tournaments," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 7(2), pages 161-190.
    27. Brown, Keith C & Harlow, W V & Starks, Laura T, 1996. "Of Tournaments and Temptations: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 85-110, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kifle T. Sebhatu & Fatemeh Taheri & Tekeste Berhanu & Miet Maertens & Steven Van Passel & Marijke D'Haese, 2021. "Beyond focus: Exploring variability of service provision of agricultural cooperatives," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 207-231, June.

    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. Chia-Ying Chan & Christine W. Lai & Liang-Chung Lee, 2017. "Strategic Choice of Risk: Evidence from Mutual Fund Families," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 125-163, February.
    2. Li, C. Wei & Tiwari, Ashish & Tong, Lin, 2022. "Mutual fund tournaments and fund Active Share," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Linlin Ma & Yuehua Tang, 2019. "Portfolio Manager Ownership and Mutual Fund Risk Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5518-5534, December.
    4. Cici, Gjergji & Hendriock, Mario & Kempf, Alexander, 2018. "The impact of labor mobility restrictions on managerial actions: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," CFR Working Papers 18-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    5. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    6. Beggs, William & DeVault, Luke, 2022. "Mutual fund (sub)advisor connections and crowds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 231-252.
    7. Spiegel, Matthew & Zhang, Hong, 2013. "Mutual fund risk and market share-adjusted fund flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 506-528.
    8. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    10. Cvitanic, Jaksa & Lazrak, Ali & Wang, Tan, 2008. "Implications of the Sharpe ratio as a performance measure in multi-period settings," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1622-1649, May.
    11. Citci, Sadettin Haluk & Inci, Eren, 2016. "The masquerade ball of the CEOs and the mask of excessive risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 383-393.
    12. Anthony Tay & Jacques Olivier, 2008. "Time-Varying Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Working Papers 10-2008, Singapore Management University, School of Economics, revised Jun 2008.
    13. Haoyue Zhang & Dayong Lv & Wenfeng Wu, 2022. "Why do bank‐affiliated mutual funds perform better in China?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(5), pages 4755-4782, December.
    14. Galkiewicz, Dominika Paula, 2014. "Manager Characteristics and Credit Derivative Use by U.S. Corporate Bond Funds," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 495, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    15. Jin, Liang & Taffler, Richard & Eshraghi, Arman & Tosun, Onur Kemal, 2020. "Fund manager conviction and investment performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Habib, Michel A. & Johnsen, D. Bruce, 2013. "Moral Hazard in Mutual Fund Management: The Quality-Assuring Role of Fees," Working Papers 13-08, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    17. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    18. Ping Hu & Jayant R. Kale & Marco Pagani & Ajay Subramanian, 2011. "Fund Flows, Performance, Managerial Career Concerns, and Risk Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(4), pages 628-646, April.
    19. Park, Keun Woo & Han, Min Yeon & Oh, Ji Yeol Jimmy, 2020. "Beta or duration? Risk-taking by balanced mutual funds in Korea✰," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    20. Emmanuel Mamatzakis & Mike Tsionas, 2018. "A Bayesian dynamic model to test persistence in funds' performance," Working Paper series 18-23, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.

    More about this item

    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:bla:finmgt:v:50:y:2021:i:1:p:47-73. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fmaaaea.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.