IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v173y2025ics0378426625000329.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investor heterogeneity and the market for fund benchmarks: Evidence from passive ETFs

Author

Listed:
  • Kostovetsky, Leonard
  • Warner, Jerold

Abstract

The market for passive ETFs and passive ETF benchmarks has exploded. Passive ETF sponsors get index benchmarks mainly from brand name index providers such as S&P and Russell. We show how benchmark and index provider characteristics are relevant for sponsors and different investor types. ETF benchmarks from large index providers attract more capital. Institutional flows exhibit a strong preference for brand name benchmarks, but do-it-yourself retail investor flows do not. ETFs that change benchmarks reduce their tracking error and have 7% higher flows in the subsequent three months, again driven by institutional flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Kostovetsky, Leonard & Warner, Jerold, 2025. "Investor heterogeneity and the market for fund benchmarks: Evidence from passive ETFs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:173:y:2025:i:c:s0378426625000329
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426625000329
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107412?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
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massa, Massimo, 2003. "How do family strategies affect fund performance? When performance-maximization is not the only game in town," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 249-304, February.
    2. Itzhak Ben-David & Francesco A. Franzoni & Rabih Moussawi, 2016. "Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 16-64, Swiss Finance Institute.
    3. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1589-1622 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Vikas Agarwal & Wei Jiang & Yuehua Tang & Baozhong Yang, 2013. "Uncovering Hedge Fund Skill from the Portfolio Holdings They Hide," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(2), pages 739-783, April.
    5. Brian J. Bushee, 2001. "Do Institutional Investors Prefer Near†Term Earnings over Long†Run Value?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(2), pages 207-246, June.
    6. Itzhak Ben‐David & Francesco Franzoni & Rabih Moussawi, 2018. "Do ETFs Increase Volatility?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(6), pages 2471-2535, December.
    7. Sharat Ganapati, 2021. "Growing Oligopolies, Prices, Output, and Productivity," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 309-327, August.
    8. An, Yu & Benetton, Matteo & Song, Yang, 2023. "Index providers: Whales behind the scenes of ETFs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(3), pages 407-433.
    9. Itzhak Ben-David & Francesco Franzoni & Byungwook Kim & Rabih Moussawi & Ralph Koijen, 2023. "Competition for Attention in the ETF Space," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(3), pages 987-1042.
    10. Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 403-456.
    11. Cremers, K. J. Martijn & Fulkerson, Jon A. & Riley, Timothy B., 2022. "Benchmark Discrepancies and Mutual Fund Performance Evaluation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(2), pages 543-571, March.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:5:p:2013-2040 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Richard B. Evans & Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, 2012. "Institutional Investors and Mutual Fund Governance: Evidence from Retail--Institutional Fund Twins," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3530-3571.
    14. Leonard Kostovetsky & Jerold B. Warner, 2020. "Measuring Innovation and Product Differentiation: Evidence from Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 779-823, April.
    15. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & P. Raghavendra Rau, 2005. "Changing Names with Style: Mutual Fund Name Changes and Their Effects on Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2825-2858, December.
    16. Sensoy, Berk A., 2009. "Performance evaluation and self-designated benchmark indexes in the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 25-39, 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. Chen, Huaizhi & Evans, Richard & Sun, Yang, 2025. "Self-Declared benchmarks and fund manager intent: “Cheating” or competing?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    2. Abis, Simona & Lines, Anton, 2024. "Broken promises, competition, and capital allocation in the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    3. Itzhak Ben-David & Francesco Franzoni & Byungwook Kim & Rabih Moussawi & Ralph Koijen, 2023. "Competition for Attention in the ETF Space," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(3), pages 987-1042.
    4. Galindo Gil, Hamilton & Lazo-Paz, Renato, 2025. "An ETF-based measure of stock price fragility," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Rabab Abouarab & Tapas Mishra & Simon Wolfe, 2025. "Spotting Portfolio Greenwashing in Environmental Funds," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 197(4), pages 811-839, April.
    6. Lesmeister, Simon & Limbach, Peter & Rau, P. Raghavendra & Sonnenburg, Florian, 2022. "Indexing and the performance-flow relation of actively managed mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 22-02, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    7. Alper Darendeli, 2025. "How do retail investors respond to summary disclosure? Evidence from mutual fund factsheets," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 1222-1266, June.
    8. Dannhauser, Caitlin D. & Spilker, Harold D., 2023. "The Modern Mutual Fund Family," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 1-20.
    9. Agarwal, Vikas & Hanouna, Paul & Moussawi, Rabih & Stahel, Christof W., 2021. "Do ETFs increase the commonality in liquidity of underlying stocks?," CFR Working Papers 21-04, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    10. Xu, Liao & Pu, Wenyan, 2022. "ETFs, arbitrage activity, and stock market efficiency: Evidence from Chinese CSI 300 ETFs," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-9.
    11. Damien Kunjal, 2022. "Evaluating the Liquidity Response of South African Exchange-Traded Funds to Country Risk Effects," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, June.
    12. Marta, Thomas & Riva, Fabrice, 2025. "Do ETFs increase the comovements of their underlying assets? Evidence from a switch in ETF replication technique," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    13. Alessandro Gavazza, 2011. "Demand spillovers and market outcomes in the mutual fund industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(4), pages 776-804, December.
    14. Hurlin, Christophe & Iseli, Grégoire & Pérignon, Christophe & Yeung, Stanley, 2019. "The counterparty risk exposure of ETF investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 215-230.
    15. Lai, Wan-Ni, 2016. "Do academic investment insights benefit society?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 172-176.
    16. Li, Shi & Fu, Rongsha & Li, Meng, 2024. "Taking matters into their own hands: How Investors' stock preferences affect mutual fund flows in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. Chincarini, Ludwig B. & Moneta, Fabio, 2021. "The challenges of oil investing: Contango and the financialization of commodities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Li, Qingyuan & Ni, Xiaoran & Yeung, P. Eric & Yin, David, 2025. "The information advantage of industry common owners and its spillover effect on stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    19. Juan Laborda & Ricardo Laborda & Javier Cruz, 2024. "Can ETFs affect U.S. financial stability? A quantile cointegration analysis," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-24, December.
    20. Duanmu, Jun & Hur, Jungshik & Li, Yongjia, 2024. "Diversification and idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: Evidence from ETFs," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    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:eee:jbfina:v:173:y:2025:i:c:s0378426625000329. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.