Risk Shifting and Mutual Fund Performance / Jennifer Huang, Clemens Sialm, Hanjiang Zhang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Huang, Jennifer.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Sialm, Clemens.

Zhang, Hanjiang.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14903.

NBER working paper series no. w14903

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

Mutual funds change their risk levels significantly over time. This paper investigates the performance consequences of risk shifting, as well as the economic motivations and the mechanisms of risk shifting. Using a holdings-based measure of risk shifting, we find that funds that increase risk perform worse than funds that keep stable risk levels over time. In addition, funds that expect higher benefits from risk shifting are more likely to increase risk and perform particularly poorly after increasing risk. Our results are consistent with the notion that agency problems, rather than the ability to take advantage of changing investment opportunities, are the likely motivation behind risk shifting behavior.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2009.