Superstar Fund Managers: Talent Revelation or Just Glamor?

Do public fund manager accolades reveal fundamental information about portfolio managers’ performance? This paper examines the effect of mutual fund managers’ superstar status on their money flows, performance, compensation, and risk-taking behavior. We show results consistent with Berk and van Binsbergen’s (2015, 2017) rational expectations equilibrium argument that skill exists among superstar fund managers and the attendant inflow of investor capital subsequently arbitrages away such outperformance. Investors respond positively to award-winning fund managers in line with their positive risk-adjusted performance. Award-winning managers extract higher compensation but do not take on increased risks or trade more actively as attention-induced incentives would predict.

Keywords: Fund manager awards, Fund flows, Performance, Compensation, Risk taking

JEL Classification: G23, G28

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Parwada, Jerry T. and Tan, Eric K. M., Superstar Fund Managers: Talent Revelation or Just Glamor? (February 14, 2016). 29th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference 2016, 8th Conference on Financial Markets and Corporate Governance (FMCG) 2017, Asian Finance Association (AsianFA) 2017 Conference, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2732363 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2732363