IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/19349.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Alpha and Performance Measurement: The Effects of Investor Disagreement and Heterogeneity

Author

Listed:
  • Wayne E. Ferson
  • Jerchern Lin

Abstract

The literature has not unambiguously established that a positive alpha, as traditionally measured, means that an investor would want to buy a fund. However, when alpha is defined using the client's marginal utility function, a client faced with a positive alpha would generally want to buy. When markets are incomplete performance measurement is inherently investor specific, and investors will disagree about the attractiveness of a given fund. We provide empirical bounds on the expected disagreement with a traditional alpha and study the cross sectional effects of disagreement and investor heterogeneity on the flow response to past fund alphas. The effects are both economically and statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Wayne E. Ferson & Jerchern Lin, 2013. "Alpha and Performance Measurement: The Effects of Investor Disagreement and Heterogeneity," NBER Working Papers 19349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19349
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19349.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C. Jensen, 1968. "The Performance Of Mutual Funds In The Period 1945–1964," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(2), pages 389-416, May.
    2. John H. Cochrane & Jesus Saa-Requejo, 2000. "Beyond Arbitrage: Good-Deal Asset Price Bounds in Incomplete Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 79-119, February.
    3. Wayne E. Ferson & Andrew F. Siegel, 2003. "Stochastic Discount Factor Bounds with Conditioning Information," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 567-595.
    4. 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.
    5. Erik R. Sirri & Peter Tufano, 1998. "Costly Search and Mutual Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1589-1622, October.
    6. Mayers, David & Rice, Edward M., 1979. "Measuring portfolio performance and the empirical content of asset pricing models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 3-28, March.
    7. Glode, Vincent, 2011. "Why mutual funds "underperform"," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 546-559, March.
    8. Goetzmann, William N. & Ingersoll, Jonathan & Ivković, Zoran, 2000. "Monthly Measurement of Daily Timers," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(3), pages 257-290, September.
    9. André de Souza & Anthony W. Lynch, 2012. "Does Mutual Fund Performance Vary over the Business Cycle?," NBER Working Papers 18137, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chen, Zhiwu & Knez, Peter J, 1996. "Portfolio Performance Measurement: Theory and Applications," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(2), pages 511-555.
    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. Roll, Richard, 1978. "Ambiguity when Performance is Measured by the Securities Market Line," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1051-1069, September.
    13. Admati, Anat R & Ross, Stephen A, 1985. "Measuring Investment Performance in a Rational Expectations Equilibrium Model," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(1), pages 1-26, January.
    14. Jobson, J. D. & Korkie, Bob, 1982. "Potential performance and tests of portfolio efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 433-466, December.
    15. Jeffrey A. Busse & Qing Tong, 2012. "Mutual Fund Industry Selection and Persistence," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 2(2), pages 245-274.
    16. Marcin Kacperczyk & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2014. "Time-Varying Fund Manager Skill," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1455-1484, August.
    17. Jonathan Ingersoll & Ivo Welch, 2007. "Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1503-1546, 2007 17.
    18. Jennifer Lynch Koski & Jeffrey Pontiff, 1999. "How Are Derivatives Used? Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 791-816, April.
    19. Dybvig, Philip H & Ross, Stephen A, 1985. "Differential Information and Performance Measurement Using a Security Market Line," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(2), pages 383-399, June.
    20. Wayne Ferson & Tyler R. Henry & Darren J. Kisgen, 2006. "Evaluating Government Bond Fund Performance with Stochastic Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 423-455.
    21. Green, Richard C, 1986. "Benchmark Portfolio Inefficiency and Deviations from the Security Market Line," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(2), pages 295-312, June.
    22. Vikram Nanda, 2004. "Family Values and the Star Phenomenon: Strategies of Mutual Fund Families," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 667-698.
    23. Prem C. Jain & Joanna Shuang Wu, 2000. "Truth in Mutual Fund Advertising: Evidence on Future Performance and Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 937-958, April.
    24. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2010. "Luck versus Skill in the Cross‐Section of Mutual Fund Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1915-1947, October.
    25. 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.
    26. Dybvig, Philip H & Ross, Stephen A, 1985. "The Analytics of Performance Measurement Using a Security Market Line," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(2), pages 401-416, June.
    27. Robert Kosowski, 2011. "Do Mutual Funds Perform When It Matters Most to Investors? US Mutual Fund Performance and Risk in Recessions and Expansions," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(03), pages 607-664.
    28. Ohlson, Ja, 1979. "Residual (Api) Analysis And The Private Value Of Information," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 506-527.
    29. Chen, Qi & Goldstein, Itay & Jiang, Wei, 2010. "Payoff complementarities and financial fragility: Evidence from mutual fund outflows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 239-262, August.
    30. Richard B. Evans, 2010. "Mutual Fund Incubation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1581-1611, August.
    31. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    32. Guercio, Diane Del & Tkac, Paula A., 2002. "The Determinants of the Flow of Funds of Managed Portfolios: Mutual Funds vs. Pension Funds," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(4), pages 523-557, December.
    33. Wayne Ferson & Kenneth Khang, 2002. "Conditional Performance Measurement Using Portfolio Weights: Evidence for Pension Funds," NBER Working Papers 8790, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. A. Beja, 1971. "The Structure of the Cost of Capital under Uncertainty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(3), pages 359-368.
    35. Ferson, Wayne E & Schadt, Rudi W, 1996. "Measuring Fund Strategy and Performance in Changing Economic Conditions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 425-461, June.
    36. Jennifer Huang & Kelsey D. Wei & Hong Yan, 2007. "Participation Costs and the Sensitivity of Fund Flows to Past Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1273-1311, June.
    37. Christopherson, Jon A & Ferson, Wayne E & Glassman, Debra A, 1998. "Conditioning Manager Alphas on Economic Information: Another Look at the Persistence of Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(1), pages 111-142.
    38. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    39. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    40. Ferson, Wayne & Khang, Kenneth, 2002. "Conditional performance measurement using portfolio weights: evidence for pension funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 249-282, August.
    41. Jagannathan, Ravi & Korajczyk, Robert A, 1986. "Assessing the Market Timing Performance of Managed Portfolios," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 217-235, April.
    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. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten & Slavutskaya, Anna, 2016. "The total benefit of alternative assets to pension fund portfolios," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 25-42.

    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. Ferson, Wayne E., 2013. "Investment Performance: A Review and Synthesis," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 969-1010, Elsevier.
    2. Wayne E. Ferson, 2013. "Ruminations on Investment Performance Measurement," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(1), pages 4-13, January.
    3. Cuthbertson, Keith & Nitzsche, Dirk & O'Sullivan, Niall, 2016. "A review of behavioural and management effects in mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 162-176.
    4. Elton, Edwin J. & Gruber, Martin J., 2013. "Mutual Funds," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1011-1061, Elsevier.
    5. Dong‐Hyun Ahn & H. Henry Cao & Stéphane Chrétien, 2009. "Portfolio Performance Measurement: a No Arbitrage Bounds Approach," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(2), pages 298-339, March.
    6. William Goetzmann & Jonathan Ingersoll & Zoran Ivkovich, 1998. "Monthly Measurement of Daily Timers," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm88, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Oct 2000.
    7. Moneta, Fabio, 2015. "Measuring bond mutual fund performance with portfolio characteristics," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 223-242.
    8. Keith Pilbeam & Hamish Preston, 2019. "An Empirical Investigation of the Performance of Japanese Mutual Funds: Skill or Luck?," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Heber Farnsworth & Wayne E. Ferson & David Jackson & Steven Todd, 2002. "Performance Evaluation with Stochastic Discount Factors," NBER Working Papers 8791, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Ferson, Wayne & Mo, Haitao, 2016. "Performance measurement with selectivity, market and volatility timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 93-110.
    11. Glode, Vincent, 2011. "Why mutual funds "underperform"," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 546-559, March.
    12. Ayadi, Mohamed A. & Kryzanowski, Lawrence, 2005. "Portfolio performance measurement using APM-free kernel models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 623-659, March.
    13. Martin Rohleder & Dominik Schulte & Marco Wilkens, 2017. "Management of flow risk in mutual funds," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 31-56, January.
    14. Andreu, Laura & Matallín-Sáez, Juan Carlos & Sarto, José Luis, 2018. "Mutual fund performance attribution and market timing using portfolio holdings," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 353-370.
    15. Cai, Biqing & Cheng, Tingting & Yan, Cheng, 2018. "Time-varying skills (versus luck) in U.S. active mutual funds and hedge funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 81-106.
    16. Alda, Mercedes & Andreu, Laura & Sarto, José Luis, 2017. "Learning about individual managers’ performance in UK pension funds: The importance of specialization," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 654-667.
    17. Gallefoss, Kristoffer & Hansen, Helge Hoff & Haukaas, Eirik Solli & Molnár, Peter, 2015. "What daily data can tell us about mutual funds: Evidence from Norway," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 117-129.
    18. Wayne Ferson & Junbo L Wang, 2021. "A Panel Regression Approach to Holdings-Based Fund Performance Measures [Multiperiod performance persistence analysis of hedge funds]," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(4), pages 695-734.
    19. Shafiqur Rahman & Cheng-Few Lee & Yaqing Xiao, 2017. "The investment performance, attributes, and investment behavior of ethical equity mutual funds in the US: an empirical investigation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 91-116, July.
    20. Eisele, Alexander & Nefedova, Tamara & Parise, Gianpaolo & Peijnenburg, Kim, 2020. "Trading out of sight: An analysis of cross-trading in mutual fund families," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 359-378.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:19349. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.