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Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives

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Author Info
Judith A. Chevalier
Glenn D. Ellison

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Abstract

This paper examines the agency conflict between mutual fund investors and mutual fund companies. Investors would like the fund company to use its judgement to maximize risk-adjusted fund returns. A fund company, however, in its desire to maximize its value as a concern has an incentive to take actions which increase the inflow of investment. We use a semiparametric model to estimate the shape of the flow-performance relationship for a sample of growth and growth and income funds observed over the 1982-1992 period. The shape of the flow-performance relationship creates incentives for fund managers to increase or decrease the riskiness of the fund which are dependent on the fund's year-to-date return. Using a new dataset of mutual fund portfolios which includes equity portfolio holdings for September and December of the same year, we show that mutual funds do alter their portfolio riskiness between September and December in a manner consistent with these risk incentives.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5234.

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Date of creation: Aug 1995
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Publication status: published as Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 105, no.6 (1997): 1167-1200.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5234

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Bull, Clive & Schotter, Andrew & Weigelt, Keith, 1987. "Tournaments and Piece Rates: An Experimental Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 1-33, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-28, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan D, 1989. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Analysis of Quarterly Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 393-416, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Zwiebel, Jeffrey, 1995. "Corporate Conservatism and Relative Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 1-25, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Borenstein, Severin & Zimmerman, Martin B, 1988. "Market Incentives for Safe Commercial Airline Operation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 913-35, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Scharfstein, David. & Stein, Jeremy C., 1988. "Herd behavior and investment," Working papers WP 2062-88., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Michael L. Bognanno, 1990. "The incentive effects of tournaments revisited: Evidence from the European PGA tour," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 43(3), pages 74-88, February.
  8. Healy, Paul M., 1985. "The effect of bonus schemes on accounting decisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 85-107, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Ippolito, Richard A, 1992. "Consumer Reaction to Measures of Poor Quality: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 45-70, April.
  10. Borland, Jeff, 1992. " Career Concerns: Incentives and Endogenous Learning in Labour Markets," Journal of Economic Surveys, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 6(3), pages 251-70.
  11. Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 1998. "A Simple Framework for Nonparametric Specification Testing," NBER Technical Working Papers 0234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Bognanno, Michael L, 1990. "Do Tournaments Have Incentive Effects?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1307-24, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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