Reversing disbursement rates to estimate stationary wealth processes for endowments with recursive preferences

Endowments have been accused of hoarding their wealth. However, the theoretically ideal spending plan remains unclear and, in practice, endowments follow a range of rules. Here we derive and estimate the optimal spending plans of an infinitely lived charity or endowment with an Epstein-Zin-Weil utility function, given general Markovian returns to wealth. We analyse two special cases: first, where spending is a power function of last period’s wealth; and second where the endowment uses ‘payout smoothing’. Via non-linear least squares, we estimate the optimal spending rate and the elasticity of inter-temporal substitution for an endowment with a typical diversified portfolio and for a portfolio of hedge funds. In a new approach, we use maximum entropy methods to characterize the returns distribution of an endowment whose spending plan conforms with the optimality condition. We confirm that the estimated returns distribution is largely consistent with the optimal spending plan.     

EXIT,VOICE, AND PORTFOLIO CHOICE: AGENCY AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP*

This paper asks what constrains the relative efficiency of a maximally decentralized form of public ownership of capital. It locates the answer in the nondecentralizability of common ownership. Relative inefficiency in the allocation of investment funds is predicted because the ability to arrange a private portfolio gives rise to incentives to investigate investment alternatives and to monitor the disbursers of investment funds, and these incentives cannot be replicated in a system in which (political) voice is the sole mechanism for instilling financial and managerial accountability. Implications for the design of public ownership systems are discussed.     

Research on spending policy for university endowment funds

University endowment funds are important capitals in many universities in China today. A lot of universities target their endowment spending at a fixed spending ratio. Because of volatile inflation, it is not optimal. In this paper, the author analyzes the importance of spending policy of university endowment funds, and suggests two models in accordance with inflation-adjusted value.     

Other financial institutions' portfolio behaviour and policy implications: A study of India

Abstract

Applied literature has largely neglected the asset decision of other financial institutions (OFIs), though it may possess important policy implications. In this paper, portfolio behaviour of OFIs in India is modelled by using the annual flow of funds data for 1951/52 to 1993/94. The long-run model of the Almost Ideal Demand System and the allied concepts of cointegration generated economically and statistically plausible results. We find a strong influence of interest rates on portfolio behavior, thereby the role of interest rates on resource allocation. The paper concludes that the macroeconomic management through monetary policy actions may not be unnecessarily limited through the channel of OFIs in the post-financial reform regime in India.     

International diversification and industry-related labor income risk

Do equity markets help diversifying away industry-related labor income risk? This paper reconsiders the hedging role of stock markets by focusing on international equity diversification, rather than domestic asset allocation, and on industry wage, rather than individual labor income. We compare industry-based portfolio holdings to the one that is optimal for an investor endowed with the average home-country labor income. Our results resurrect the role of equities in hedging wage risk by uncovering remarkable heterogeneity across industries within each investing country. Our analysis also delivers insights concerning the role of occupational pension funds in designing optimal portfolios for their members.     

Individual account investment options and portfolio choice: Behavioral lessons from 401(k) plans

This paper examines how the menu of investment options made available to workers in defined contribution plans influences portfolio choice. Using unique panel data of 401(k) plans in the U.S., we present three principle findings. First, we show that the share of investment options in a particular asset class (i.e., company stock, equities, fixed income, and balanced funds) has a significant effect on aggregate participant portfolio allocations across these asset classes. Second, we document that the vast majority of the new funds added to 401(k) plans are high-cost actively-managed equity funds, as opposed to lower-cost equity index funds. Third, because the average share of assets invested in low-cost equity index funds declines with an increase in the number of options, average portfolio expenses increase and average portfolio performance is thus depressed. All of these findings are obtained from a panel data set, enabling us to control for heterogeneity in the investment preferences of workers across firms and across time.     

基本养老保险筹资权行使主体的确定及其理论依据

基本养老保险筹资权的行使主体的确定问题,应从中央与地方政府财权划分的角度进行分析。我国地方政府行使基本养老保险筹资权存在不合理性,应建立由中央政府统筹的基本养老保险制度。     

Capital endowment, credit constraint and FDI: Analysis based on heterogeneous firms

To examine the impact of capital endowment and credit constraint on firms’ FDI decisions, we build a model of investment portfolio based on heterogeneous firms setup. We find that financial factors matter for firms’ internationalization. More capital endowment or less credit constraint lowers cutoff productivity for firms to do FDI.     

The Performance of Market‐Timing Strategies of Italian Mutual Fund Investors

In this paper, we show that simple buy‐and‐hold strategies over‐perform market‐timing strategies effectively used by Italian investors in equity mutual funds. We estimate returns from market‐timing strategies using aggregate data on net flows for a large sample of equity mutual funds, available to Italian investors, that buy stocks in the following markets: Europe and the euro area, the United States and Emerging markets. In all cases, buy‐and‐hold over‐performs market‐timing with extra returns that go from 0.24 per cent per quarter (Europe and euro area) to 0.87 per cent per quarter (US market). These differences are not explained by differences in risk and risk exposure. Investors should re‐consider their investment strategies and choose cheaper, in terms of fees and simpler, in terms of portfolio allocation, passive strategies.     

An algebraic theory of portfolio allocation

Summary. Using group and majorization theory, we explore what can be established about allocation of funds among assets when asymmetries in the returns vector are carefully controlled. The key insight is that preferences over allocations can be partially ordered via majorized convex hulls that have been generated by a permutation group. Group transitivity suffices to ensure complete portfolio diversification. Point-wise stabilizer subgroups admit sectoral separability in fund allocations. We also bound the admissible allocation vector by a set of linear constraints the coefficients of which are determined by group operations on location and scale asymmetries in the rate of returns vector. For a distribution that is symmetric under a reflection group, the linear constraints may be further strengthened whenever there exists an hyperplane that separates convex sets. Received: May 15, 2001; revised version: March 20, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Journal paper No. J-19797 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa. Project No. 3463, and supported by Hatch Act and State of Iowa funds. Correspondence to: D. A. Hennessy     

An experimental study of the impact of competition for Other People’s Money: the portfolio manager market

In this paper we experimentally investigate the impact that competing for funds has on the risk-taking behavior of laboratory portfolio managers compensated through an option-like scheme according to which the manager receives (most of) the compensation only for returns in excess of pre-specified strike price. We find that such a competitive environment and contractual arrangement lead, both in theory and in the lab, to inefficient risk taking behavior on the part of portfolio managers. We then study various policy interventions, obtained by manipulating various aspects of the competitive environment and the contractual arrangement, e.g., the Transparency of the contracts offered, the Risk Sharing component in the contract linking portfolio managers to investors, etc. While all these interventions would induce portfolio managers, at equilibrium, to efficiently invest funds in safe assets, we find that, in the lab, Transparency is most effective in incentivising managers to do so. Finally, we document a behavioral “Other People’s Money” effect in the lab, where portfolio managers tend to invest the funds of their investors in a more risky manner than their Own Money, even when it is not in either the investors’ or the managers’ interest to do so.     

Information Sharing within the Networks of Delegated Portfolio Managers: Evidence from Plan Sponsors and Their Subadvisers

The authors study information sharing among delegated portfolio managers through networks connected by investment mandates between plan sponsors and their subadvisers. Specifically, they identify similarity in returns, holdings, and trading between mutual funds operated by subadvisers, and test whether such similarity is stronger when two funds share a mandate network. The authors find evidence consistent with information sharing among these delegated portfolio managers. A mutual fund on average shares more similar returns, holdings, and trading with funds in subadvisory mandate networks than with funds outside the networks. Preliminary evidence suggests that information about both general investment styles and individual firms is transferred within mandate networks.     

Are Islamic finance innovations enough for investors to escape from a financial downturn? Further evidence from portfolio simulations

Does Islamic finance constitute a promising solution for the current global financial crisis and are Islamic financial innovations enough to reassure investors, stabilize financial systems and provide them with a means of escaping from financial downturns? This article addresses these questions while investigating the dynamics of Islamic and conventional stock prices over the last few years. In particular, we apply Multivariate Vector Autoregressive (VAR) tools to test the interaction between conventional and Islamic financial products, and implement the Granger causality test to specify the dependence orientation of feedback between Islamic and conventional stock prices. Our article differs from previous work on the topic in that it develops portfolio simulations to determine whether Islamic finance can supplant conventional finance by generating investment and diversification opportunities during periods of crisis. In addition, we develop optimal portfolio strategies and investment proportions for conventional and Islamic funds to ensure the best resource allocation. Our main findings are: (i) the impact of the current crisis on the Islamic finance industry is less marked than on conventional finance, (ii) investment in Islamic products generates high returns, (iii) portfolios that include Islamic products reduce systemic risk and generate significant diversification benefits, (iv) the US crisis has led to significant changes in resource allocation through changes in investment choices.     

我国证券投资基金持股特征的实证研究

本文使用2002年基金年报中的投资组合数据对2002年末期基金的持股特征进行了实证研究.研究表明,基金的持股比重与股票的每股收益、标准差、股票价格、流通市值、换手率和上市年龄等特征变量具有显著的相关性,通过分析进一步发现基金在2002年末市场低迷的时期十分注重上市公司的业绩、股票的波动性和流动性风险,并且实施价值型投资策略.本文的其它研究结果还表明基金具有较好的识别、挖掘股票价值以及调整投资组合的能力.     

Risk aversion and portfolio allocation to mutual fund classes

The major factors affecting fund flows allocated to a range of mutual fund classes bearing different risk–return profiles are studied. The flexible functional form of the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) is applied to identify the major drivers of Greek investors' demand patterns for equity, bond, balanced and money market funds, given the strong growth rates of the domestic fund market and the economy's latest entry into the EMU. An increase in household expenditure is shown to have a positive impact on mutual fund flows. An adverse price impact, however, may erode budget benefits towards a fund class, as the price factor appears to be important. The cross-price effects provide insight on complementarity and substitutability among the mutual fund classes. Variations in investors' risk aversion attitudes affect demand for mutual funds and can result in asset reallocation between the asset classes. The conclusions have useful policy implications particularly to asset fund management and portfolio allocation strategies and can be compared with established mutual fund markets.     

Pension funds' allocations to hedge funds: an empirical analysis of US and Canadian defined benefit plans

This article investigates the characteristics of US and Canadian pension funds that allocate assets to hedge funds. The typical pension fund that invests in hedge funds is a large sophisticated pension fund that diversifies its portfolio across numerous classes of investments, private equity in particular, uses a core-satellite organization and has access to low delegation costs for alternative assets. Moreover, we find that pension funds investing in hedge funds significantly obtained higher global returns.     

Fund Portfolio Holdings and Affiliated Analyst's Objectivity: Do Equity and Employment Relationship Matter?

The author investigates how the equity relationship between fund company and brokerage firm as well as employment relationship between analyst and brokerage firm affect affiliated fund stock portfolio holding and the affiliated analyst's objectivity. By using the specific data of such equity and employment relationship, the author finds that equity and employment relationship do matter in fund portfolio holdings and analyst objectivity. Specifically, analysts tend to release more optimal ratings on stocks that have been hold by the funds, and the funds tend to significantly reduce the stocks in their portfolio once the analysts have announced high ratings on the stocks. Moreover, the analysts in employment relationships with majority shareholders of funds and with a low reputation reveal worse objectivity. In addition, from the point of abnormal return, analysts in employment relationships with majority shareholders of funds and with a low reputation damage the interests of common investors.     

Shortfall minimization and the Naive (1/N) portfolio: an out-of-sample comparison

Naive portfolio selection, wherein an investor allocates an equal portion of their wealth to the field of candidate assets, is a simple ad-hoc way to create a portfolio. Naive portfolio selection contrasts to the many sophisticated portfolio selection rules that are optimal with respect to a specific portfolio allocation objective and which often perform well in sample. However, some recent research finds that many of these ‘optimal’ portfolio allocation mechanisms perform no better than naive diversification in out-of-sample data. This paper extends this line of inquiry by comparing the out-of-sample performance of naive portfolio selection to several recently developed shortfall-minimizing portfolio selection methods. The results corroborate the prior findings that optimal portfolio methods struggle to beat the naive portfolio in out-of-sample environments.     

指数型基金跟踪误差的实证分析

指数型基金是指采用指数化方式构建投资组合的基金,它与标的指数的选择密切相关.指数基金的构建有三大要素:标的指数、样本证券、权重分配,其目的是与标的指数之间的跟踪误差尽量小.虽然流动性、噪音、处置效应等均会影响指数基金的跟踪误差,但是,在一个较高有效性的市场中,指数型基金与标的指数间的跟踪误差要比新兴市场的小,这主要是因为该市场的流动性较好,成份股的选择有较大的余地.而在中国这样一个"新兴 转轨"市场中,指数基金往往会因为标的指数成份股数量不同而产生很大的差异,标的指数成份股越多,相对应指数基金的跟踪误差就越大;复制型基金完全复制策略下的跟踪误差要比增强型指数基金非完全复制策略下的跟踪误差要小;大额申购与赎回对指数基金跟踪误差产生明显影响.因此,指数型基金投资组合的构建应坚持被动投资,力避主动投资.     

Herding in delegated portfolio management: When is comparative performance information desirable?

We address the issue of investors’ asset allocation decisions when portfolio management is delegated to an agent. Contrary to predictions from traditional financial theory, it is shown that investors may not induce their manager to allocate funds to the asset with the highest return. Instead they may herd in their asset allocation decision and induce trade in a particular asset, because another manager is trading in it and despite the presence of a more profitable alternative. Doing so allows investors to write an efficiency-improving relative-performance contract. On the other hand, herding leads investors to design wage contracts strategically, resulting in more aggressive and thus less profitable trade in equilibrium. We show that herding occurs, when the cost of information is high, information precision is low and when managers are sufficiently risk averse. Moreover, when investors can decide whether or not to disclose information about their manager's performance, they will not do so.