IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v120y2005i1p247-272..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why are Most Funds Open-End? Competition and the Limits of Arbitrage

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy C. Stein

Abstract

The majority of asset-management intermediaries (e.g., mutual funds, hedge funds) are structured on an open-end basis, even though it appears that the open-end form can be a serious impediment to arbitrage. I argue that when funds compete to attract investors' dollars, the equilibrium degree of open-ending in an economy can be excessive from the point of view of these investors. One implication of the analysis is that, even absent short-sales constraints or other frictions, economically large mispricings can coexist with rational, competitive arbitrageurs who earn small excess returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy C. Stein, 2005. "Why are Most Funds Open-End? Competition and the Limits of Arbitrage," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 247-272.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:120:y:2005:i:1:p:247-272.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/0033553053327489
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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:oup:qjecon:v:120:y:2005:i:1:p:247-272.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    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.