IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v110y2013i2p300-323.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economics of hedge funds

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X13001621
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    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. Getmansky, Mila & Lo, Andrew W. & Makarov, Igor, 2004. "An econometric model of serial correlation and illiquidity in hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 529-609, December.
    2. Liu, Xuewen & Mello, Antonio S., 2011. "The fragile capital structure of hedge funds and the limits to arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 491-506.
    3. Hodder, James E. & Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2007. "Incentive Contracts and Hedge Fund Management," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(04), pages 811-826, December.
    4. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2009. "Market Liquidity and Funding Liquidity," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2201-2238, June.
    5. Jennifer N. Carpenter, 2000. "Does Option Compensation Increase Managerial Risk Appetite?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 2311-2331, October.
    6. Patrick Bolton & Hui Chen & Neng Wang, 2011. "A Unified Theory of Tobin's q, Corporate Investment, Financing, and Risk Management," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1545-1578, October.
    7. Vikas Agarwal, 2004. "Risks and Portfolio Decisions Involving Hedge Funds," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 63-98.
    8. Vikas Agarwal & Naveen D. Daniel & Narayan Y. Naik, 2009. "Role of Managerial Incentives and Discretion in Hedge Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2221-2256, October.
    9. 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.
    10. Suleyman Basak & Anna Pavlova & Alexander Shapiro, 2007. "Optimal Asset Allocation and Risk Shifting in Money Management," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1583-1621, 2007 21.
    11. Jonathan B. Berk & Richard C. Green, 2004. "Mutual Fund Flows and Performance in Rational Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1269-1295, December.
    12. Merton, Robert C., 1971. "Optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-413, December.
    13. Morten Sorensen & Neng Wang & Jinqiang Yang, 2014. "Valuing Private Equity," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(7), pages 1977-2021.
    14. Cuoco, Domenico & Kaniel, Ron, 2011. "Equilibrium prices in the presence of delegated portfolio management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 264-296, August.
    15. William N. Goetzmann & Jonathan E. Ingersoll & Stephen A. Ross, 2003. "High-Water Marks and Hedge Fund Management Contracts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1685-1718, August.
    16. Vikas Agarwal & Naveen D. Daniel & Narayan Y. Naik, 2011. "Do Hedge Funds Manage Their Reported Returns?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(10), pages 3281-3320.
    17. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. " The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    18. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    19. Ang, Andrew & Gorovyy, Sergiy & van Inwegen, Gregory B., 2011. "Hedge fund leverage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 102-126, October.
    20. Stephen A. Ross, 2004. "Compensation, Incentives, and the Duality of Risk Aversion and Riskiness," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 207-225, February.
    21. George O. Aragon & Vikram Nanda, 2012. "Tournament Behavior in Hedge Funds: High-water Marks, Fund Liquidation, and Managerial Stake," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(3), pages 937-974.
    22. Sanford J. Grossman & Zhongquan Zhou, 1993. "Optimal Investment Strategies For Controlling Drawdowns," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(3), pages 241-276.
    23. Grossman, Sanford J. & Vila, Jean-Luc, 1992. "Optimal Dynamic Trading with Leverage Constraints," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(02), pages 151-168, June.
    24. Kosowski, Robert & Naik, Narayan Y. & Teo, Melvyn, 2007. "Do hedge funds deliver alpha? A Bayesian and bootstrap analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 229-264, April.
    25. Brown, Stephen J, et al, 1992. "Survivorship Bias in Performance Studies," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(4), pages 553-580.
    26. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A, 1997. "Empirical Characteristics of Dynamic Trading Strategies: The Case of Hedge Funds," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(2), pages 275-302.
    27. Andrew Metrick, 2010. "The Economics of Private Equity Funds," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(6), pages 2303-2341, June.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Morten Sorensen & Neng Wang & Jinqiang Yang, 2014. "Valuing Private Equity," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(7), pages 1977-2021.
    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. repec:kap:fmktpm:v:32:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11408-018-0309-4 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. 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.
    7. Hong, Xin, 2014. "The dynamics of hedge fund share restrictions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 82-99.
    8. repec:eee:ecmode:v:68:y:2018:i:c:p:599-610 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Keywords

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

    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

    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:eee:jfinec:v:110:y:2013:i:2:p:300-323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.