Broken Promises, Competition, and Capital Allocation in the Mutual Fund Industry

93 Pages Posted: 24 May 2021 Last revised: 16 Oct 2024

See all articles by Simona Abis

Simona Abis

University of Colorado at Boulder

Anton Lines

Copenhagen Business School - Department of Finance

Date Written: August 10, 2023

Abstract

What characteristics of mutual funds do investors care about? In addition to performance and fees, we show that investors exhibit a clear preference for managers who adhere to the strategies they describe in their prospectuses. Capital flows respond negatively when funds diverge from the average holdings of their text-based strategy peer groups, but positively when they outperform those peer averages. We identify this effect using a novel instrumental variables approach, and show that funds face a delicate trade-off between keeping their promises and outperforming their peers who make similar promises.

Keywords: Mutual Fund Strategies, Prospectuses, Industrial Organization, Fund Flows, Machine Learning

JEL Classification: G11, G23, L10

Suggested Citation

Abis, Simona and Lines, Anton, Broken Promises, Competition, and Capital Allocation in the Mutual Fund Industry (August 10, 2023). Columbia Business School Research Paper No. 3851861, Journal of Financial Economics, volume 162, 2024[10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103948], Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3851861 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103948

Simona Abis

University of Colorado at Boulder ( email )

256 UCB
Boulder, CO CO 80300-0256
United States

Anton Lines (Contact Author)

Copenhagen Business School - Department of Finance ( email )

A4.17 Solbjerg Plads 3
Copenhagen, Frederiksberg 2000
Denmark

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