Risk Appetite,Home Bias and the Unstable Demand for Emerging Market Assets

Home bias arises when the actual portfolio of an investor consists of a smaller proportion of foreign assets than that predicted by standard portfolio theory for the observed set of risks and returns on available assets. The existence and persistence of home bias undermines the theoretical case for the efficiency of international capital markets. In this paper we use data on UK pension fund portfolios to measure home bias, and find that this is doubly acute in the case of emerging market equity—a bias against overseas assets as a whole being further magnified by a bias against emerging markets within the foreign equity class as a whole. Moreover, contrary to the conventional assumption that risk aversion is both relatively low and stable over time (canonised in neoclassical theory by the derivation of constant relative risk aversion from the utility function itself) our finding that home bias fluctuates over time suggests that risk aversion is in fact time‐variant and path‐dependent. We sketch an alternative Keynesian approach in conclusion.     

国际分散化投资与本土偏好行为——基于QDⅡ对外投资基金的实证分析

本文运用2009年中国8家QDII基金境外组合的周收益历史数据,与基于全球29个股市指数的收益数据构建的国际投资分散化有效前沿进行比较,探讨QDII基金在境外投资过程中是否存在"本土偏好"。研究发现我国QDII基金与国际投资分散化有效边界都存在着不同程度的偏差,反映出较显著的本土偏好的投资行为。本土偏好减弱了国际分散化效果,降低了QDII基金的绩效。资本管制、交易成本和信息不对称是造成本土偏好的主要原因,因此放松资本管制,降低交易成本,降低信息获取成本,加快资本市场开放和合作能够使投资者更好地享受国际分散化投资带来的利益。     

国际分散化投资与本土偏好行为——基于QDII对外投资基金的实证分析

本文运用2009年中国8家QDII基金境外组合的周收益历史数据,与基于全球29个股市指数的收益数据构建的国际投资分散化有效前沿进行比较,探讨QDII基金在境外投资过程中是否存在“本土偏好”。研究发现我国QDII基金与国际投资分散化有效边界都存在着不同程度的偏差,反映出较显著的本土偏好的投资行为。本土偏好减弱了国际分散化效果,降低了QDII基金的绩效。资本管制、交易成本和信息不对称是造成本土偏好的主要原因,因此放松资本管制,降低交易成本,降低信息获取成本,加快资本市场开放和合作能够使投资者更好地享受国际分散化投资带来的利益。     

On causality in the size-efficiency relationship: the effect of investor cash flows on the mutual fund industry

One of the perceived advantages in mutual fund management is the presence of economies of scale resulting from fund size. This article analyses the impact of mutual fund cash flows on the relation between size and performance, demonstrating that performance determines asymmetric variations in fund assets, particularly in mutual equity funds. Therefore, the more efficient funds generate broad enough cash flow entry that increases the relative size of the fund, leading to an implicit and positive relation between size and performance. So, if the average size over the period sample is used as a measure of size, such a relation would be biased. When the initial size is used, this bias is avoided and, in general, an insignificant relation is found between size and performance. These results are controlled by mutual fund costs using gross returns to estimate performance. The evidence is robust, and shows only weak evidence of a negative relation between size and performance for the balanced funds that is driven by a low positive relation between costs and size; precisely, the contrary that is expected from the hypothesis of the presence of economies of scale.     

Financial Development, Financing Choice and Economic Growth

In an overlapping generations economy, households (lenders) fund risky investment projects of firms (borrowers) by drawing up loan contracts on the basis of asymmetric information. An optimal contract entails either the issue of only debt or the issue of both debt and equity according to whether a household faces a single or double enforcement problem as a result of its own decision about whether or not to undertake costly information acquisition. The equilibrium choice of contract depends on the state of the economy which, in turn, depends on the contracting regime. Based on this analysis, the paper provides a theory of the joint determination of real and financial development, with the ability to explain both the endogenous emergence of stock markets and the complementarity between debt finance and equity finance.     

Information acquisition and mutual funds

We study the formation of mutual funds by generalizing the standard competitive noisy rational expectations framework. In our model, informed agents set up mutual funds as a means of selling their private information to uninformed agents. We study the case of imperfect competition among fund managers, where uninformed agents invest simultaneously in multiple mutual funds. The size of the assets under management in the mutual fund industry is determined by endogenizing the agents' information acquisition decisions. Our model yields novel predictions on the informativeness of price, the optimal fees of mutual funds, and the equilibrium risk premium. In particular, we show that a sufficiently competitive mutual fund sector yields more informative prices and a lower equity risk premium.     

Irrational Mutual Fund Managers: Explaining Differences in Their Behavior

Documenting the disposition effect for a large sample of mutual fund managers in the United States, we find that stock-level characteristics explain the cross-sectional variation of the effect. The disposition effect, which is the tendency to sell winner stocks too early and hold on to loser stocks for too long, is more pronounced for fund managers who invest in stocks that are more difficult to value. Using different measures of stock and market uncertainty, we show that mutual fund managers display a stronger disposition-driven behavior when stocks are more difficult to value. We also find that the level of the disposition effect is monotonically increasing with the level of systematic risk (i.e., beta). In addition, we document that the trading behavior of mutual fund managers is partly driven by attention-grabbing stocks (dividend-paying stocks). Overall, our results suggest that stock-level uncertainty and trading of attention-grabbing stocks amplify the disposition effect and that differences in the effect can be explained by mutual fund managers' investment styles. Given that mutual funds hold a large fraction of the U.S. equity market, our findings add to the ongoing discussion whether professional investors can create stock mispricings and shed new light on market efficiency.     

The Home Bias in Equities and Distribution Costs

We show that incorporating distribution costs into a general equilibrium model of international portfolio choice helps to explain the home bias in international equity investment. Our model is able to replicate observed investment positions for a wide range of parameter values, even if agents have an incentive to hedge labor income risk by purchasing foreign equity. This is because the existence of a retail sector affects both the correlation of domestic returns with the domestic price level and the correlation between financial and non‐financial income.     

从契约设计角度看中国私募证券基金企业创新发展的路径选择——通过比较分析公司制与有限合伙制私募企业的激励机制

按特定组织形式组建的私募企业具有特定的内部收益分配制度,而受益分配制度的设置实际上是一种契约设计,反映了基金投资人对基金管理人的激励特征。结合目前中国私募证券基金在组织形式上的创新需求,可以利用契约理论,对可供参考的两类私募企业组织形式:公司制与有限合伙制企业的收益分配制度所对应的契约激励机制进行比较分析,为中国私募证券基金在组织形式上的创新路径选择提供参考。     

Does High Stock Price Synchronicity Always Hurt Mutual Fund Industry? Sentiment Matters

Investors have agreed that high synchronicity of stock returns adversely influences professional funds' profitability. However, different market conditions where high synchronicity exists may have different effects on this relationship. This study incorporates aggregate investor sentiment as a market condition in the equation to explore whether and when the negative association between synchronicity and fund performance holds. The authors use a sample of actively managed U.S. equity mutual funds from 2000 to 2014 and employ a portfolio of 11 passively managed funds as the benchmark to measure fund performance and fund management skill. They find empirical evidence that synchronicity negatively impacts mutual funds' profitability when the investor sentiment is low. This negative relationship disappears in high-sentiment periods. They also find that in both low- and high-sentiment states, fund managers with superior stock selection skill make more profits from high synchronicity than the average.     

The Relevance of Investor Risk Classes in Ranking Fund Performance: An Application of the Extended Mean-Gini CAPM

The primary focus of this paper is to investigate whether the introduction of investor risk classes to the fund performance model affects relative performance rankings. In other words, are investor risk classes relevant? This analysis is conducted in an Extended Mean Gini (EMG) CAPM f ramework. Our results support the conclusion that investor risk class is not relevant to the performance ranking of a fund. Thus, it would seem that fund managers are not developing portfolios which are suited to a particular class of risk averse investors. Furthermore, based on our results, equity fund managers are unable to outperform the market portfolio. Finally, we find no relationship between performance and perceived level of activity — thus suggesting the irrelevance of perceived management style.

     

Building a Centre of Capital Accumulation: A Study of the Institutional Emergence of the French Private Equity Sector (from the Early 1980s to 2017)

ABSTRACT

This article describes a major shift in French capitalism: the emergence and development of the new private equity sector. It discusses the particularities involved in the construction of this capital accumulation centre in France, studying how an advantageous institutional arrangement was coproduced by fund managers, government and traditional industrial managers. As such, it takes an institutional approach focusing on the history of the rules that enable financial activities. This article’s empirical material takes the form of (hitherto untapped) archives from the professional association of French private equity funds covering the period from 1984 to 2017, 12 interviews with former presidents of the association and ten interviews with partners of large French private equity funds.     

Home Bias and High Turnover in an Overlapping-generations Model with Learning

This paper develops a two‐country overlapping‐generations (OLG) model under the assumption that investors are on a learning path. While investors from both countries receive identical information flows, domestic investors start off with less precise prior beliefs concerning foreign fundamentals. On a learning path, differences in beliefs and estimation risk generate portfolio biases that match the empirical evidence: home bias in equity portfolios and trend‐chasing in international flows. In addition, due to the higher volatility of the estimates of foreign state variables, our model produces excessive turnover in foreign securities. We calibrate the model on the historical path of quarterly real GDP data for the US and Europe. Under the assumption of a financial liberalization in the 1970s, the model produces preference for domestic securities and turnover.     

AUSTRALIA'S EQUITY HOME BIAS

This paper constructs the float adjusted measure of home bias and explores the determinants of Australia's equity home bias by employing the International Monetary Fund's high quality dataset (2001 to 2005) on cross border equity investment. On the empirical front, the paper conducts robustness tests by employing instrumental variables that are standard in the financial economics literature. The paper finds that the share of the number of firms listed in the domestic market and the share of internet users in the total population of the host country has a significant impact on equity home bias. Trade linkages are found to have a mixed impact on equity home bias. The paper also finds that the country's market share of the world market capitalisation and transaction costs do not impact Australia's equity home bias. Investors are found to exhibit low diversification motives.     

Payout and asymmetric information

This article investigates the effects of payout policy on the level of asymmetric information in the market for common equity shares. The results suggest that higher dividend levels are associated with lower price impact, both as a percentage of economic value and as a percentage of the spread. And greater share repurchase ratios are associated with lower price impacts as a percentage of the spread. Overall, the results suggest that managers may have more than the choice of market settings as a means to improve the quality of the market for their stock and the efficiency of price.     

Can foreign equity funds outperform their benchmarks? New evidence from fund-holding data for China

We investigate whether foreign institutional investors can outperform domestic benchmarks. Using portfolio holding-based approaches for the Chinese Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFIIs), we identify fund’s active manager opinions and information on the future value of stocks. We find stocks actively traded by QFIIs, and stocks with higher deviation from benchmarks (DFB) outperform their benchmarks in the subsequent one to three quarters. Such “hot hand” phenomenon is driven by foreign institutions’ investment skill in incorporating stale information rather than fresh information into asset pricing. Our findings shed new light on the roles of foreign equity funds in eliminating mispricing in emerging markets, and provide evidence on rethinking the role of financial intermediation in a capital-controlled economy.     

Welfare Effects of Reducing Home Bias in Government Procurements: A Dynamic Contest Model

This paper models an international contest for government procurement as a dynamic game between a domestic firm and a foreign firm. We show that trade liberalization, in the form of a reduction in bias against the foreign firm, improves both domestic and global welfare if (i) either the foreign firm's profit is sufficiently large or (ii) the initial degree of home bias is sufficiently small. If the initial home bias is large, a small reduction in the bias may reduce welfare.     

Absorptive capacity and quality upgrading effect of OFDI: Evidence from China

Does outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from developing countries affect firms' competitiveness in international markets through quality upgrading of export? Using highly disaggregated Chinese product level data and the firm level information on overseas investment from 2000 to 2006, we attempt to provide an answer to this question. We employ the propensity score matching approach and difference-in-differences specification to deal with the sample selection bias and the potentially endogenous problem in inferring the causal effect of OFDI on quality upgrading. The results reveal that investment abroad could significantly push China export up on quality ladders. The firms with OFDI have higher quality products when compared with the firms remaining invest in their home country at product-export destination level. This quality upgrading effect is more pronounced where firms export to high-income countries. Furthermore, we show that the learning mechanism works and the absorptive ability of firms could reinforce the quality upgrading effect of OFDI. The learning mechanism also works for the firms with difference OFDI strategies.     

Does Mutual Fund Flow Reflect Investor Sentiment?

This paper examines the relationship between net aggregate equity fund flow and investor sentiment using weekly flow data. Using sentiment indicators from the American Association of Individual Investors and Investors Intelligence, I find that net aggregate equity fund flow in the current week is higher when individual investors became more bullish in the previous and current weeks. Moreover, higher net aggregate equity fund flow in the current week induces newsletter writers to become more bullish in the subsequent week. The relationship between net aggregate equity fund flow and investor sentiment remains strong even after accounting for the effects of risk premium and inflation. Overall, the evidence suggests that the behavior of equity fund investors is influenced not only by economic fundamentals, but also by investor sentiment.     

股权激励能够抑制大股东掏空吗?

本文检验了股权激励对大股东掏空的抑制作用,结果发现,在控制了其他公司治理要素对大股东占款的影响之后,总经理持股或股权激励安排确实能够抑制大股东对上市公司的侵占,但是,股权激励的抑制效果不是线性增长的,即总经理持股比例与大股东侵占度不成线性关系。本文没有发现总经理持股比例超过5%时会产生堑壕效应,也没有发现所有制形式对股权激励效果有重大影响。本文的研究结果为正在进行的股权激励政策提供经验证据的支持,也丰富了股权激励的相关文献。