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The economics of hedge funds

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  • Lan, Yingcong
  • Wang, Neng
  • Yang, Jinqiang

Abstract

Hedge fund managers trade off the benefits of leveraging on the alpha-generating strategy against the costs of inefficient fund liquidation. In contrast to the standard risk-seeking intuition, even with a constant-return-to-scale alpha-generating strategy, a risk-neutral manager becomes endogenously risk-averse and decreases leverage following poor performance to increase the fund's survival likelihood. Our calibration suggests that management fees are the majority of the total compensation. Money flows, managerial restart options, and management ownership increase the importance of high-water-mark-based incentive fees but management fees remain the majority. Investors' valuation of fees are highly sensitive to their assessments of the manager's skill.

Suggested Citation

  • Lan, Yingcong & Wang, Neng & Yang, Jinqiang, 2013. "The economics of hedge funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 300-323.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:110:y:2013:i:2:p:300-323
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.05.004
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    Cited by:

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    2. Kaniel, Ron & tompaidis, stathis & Zhou, Ti, 2017. "Impact of Managerial Commitment on Risk Taking with Dynamic Fund Flows," CEPR Discussion Papers 12285, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Marcos Escobar-Anel & Vincent Höhn & Luis Seco & Rudi Zagst, 2018. "Optimal fee structures in hedge funds," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(7), pages 522-542, December.
    4. Aiken, Adam L. & Clifford, Christopher P. & Ellis, Jesse A., 2015. "Hedge funds and discretionary liquidity restrictions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 197-218.
    5. Li, Jiangyuan & Liu, Bo & Yang, Jinqiang & Zou, Zhentao, 2020. "Hedge fund’s dynamic leverage decisions under time-inconsistent preferences," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(2), pages 779-791.
    6. Itzhak Ben-David & Justin Birru & Andrea Rossi, 2020. "The Performance of Hedge Fund Performance Fees," NBER Working Papers 27454, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Mark D. Flood & Phillip Monin, 2016. "Form PF and Hedge Funds: Risk-measurement Precision for Option Portfolios," Working Papers 16-02, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    8. Tak-Yuen Wong, 2019. "Dynamic Agency and Endogenous Risk-Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4032-4048, September.
    9. Hong, Xin, 2014. "The dynamics of hedge fund share restrictions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 82-99.
    10. Hugo E. Ramirez & Peter Duck & Paul V. Johnson & Sydney Howell, 2019. "Hedge-Fund Management With Liquidity Constraint," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(06), pages 1-31, September.
    11. Flavio Angelini & Katia Colaneri & Stefano Herzel & Marco Nicolosi, 2020. "Implicit Incentives for Fund Managers with Partial Information," Papers 2011.07871, arXiv.org.
    12. Zhao, Li & Huang, Wenli & Yang, Chen & Li, Shenghong, 2018. "Hedge fund leverage with stochastic market conditions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 258-273.
    13. Wang, Yuli & Niu, Yingjie, 2020. "Ambiguity aversion for risk choice," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    14. Cui, Zhenyu & Lars Kirkby, J. & Nguyen, Duy, 2019. "A general framework for time-changed Markov processes and applications," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(2), pages 785-800.
    15. Zhao, Li & Huang, Wenli & Ba, Shusong, 2018. "Optimal effort under high-water mark contracts," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 599-610.
    16. Adrien Becam & Andros Gregoriou & Jairaj Gupta, 2019. "Does size matter in predicting hedge funds' liquidation?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(2), pages 271-309, March.
    17. Ewald, Christian-Oliver & Zhang, Hai, 2016. "Hedge fund seeding via fees-for-seed swaps under idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 45-59.
    18. Dandan Song & Jinqiang Yang & Zhaojun Yang, 2013. "High-Water Marks and Hedge Fund Management Contracts with Partial Information," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 42(3), pages 327-350, October.
    19. Ron Kaniel & Stathis Tompaidis & Ti Zhou, 2019. "Impact of Managerial Commitment on Risk Taking with Dynamic Fund Flows," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3174-3195, July.
    20. Michael S. O’Doherty & N. E. Savin & Ashish Tiwari, 2016. "Evaluating Hedge Funds with Pooled Benchmarks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 69-89, January.
    21. Mark D. Flood & Phillip Monin & Lina Bandyopadhyay, 2015. "Gauging Form PF: Data Tolerances in Regulatory Reporting on Hedge Fund Risk Exposures," Working Papers 15-13, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    22. Morten Sorensen & Neng Wang & Jinqiang Yang, 2014. "Valuing Private Equity," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(7), pages 1977-2021.
    23. Judy Qiu & Leilei Tang & Ingo Walter, 2018. "Hedge fund incentives, management commitment and survivorship," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 32(2), pages 115-142, May.
    24. Bo Liu & Yang Liu & Jinqiang Yang, 2018. "Optimal ownership structure in private equity," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(1), pages 113-135, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    High-water mark (HWM); Alpha; Management fees; Incentive fees; Liquidation risk; New money flow;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

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