Abstract This doctoral thesis aims to contribute to the literature on hedge fund performance and risk by conducting four interrelated essays. The first two essays measure and predict hedge fund performance using novel methodologies based on recent development in portfolio choice techniques. This new way to evaluate fund performance relies on economic theory and robust econometric principles. The first essay exploits hedge fund characteristics in order to pick right funds into a portfolio, whereas the second essay predicts hedge fund performance using conditional information that is contained in macroeconomic variables. The empirical analysis shows that the proposed conditional real-time portfolio strategies deliver significant outperformance over the unconditional benchmark strategy which does not utilize conditional information. The third essay investigates whether a particular hedge fund with specific fund characteristics contributes to systemic risk and how hedge funds with a high systemic risk contribution perform during the times of financial distress. The findings suggest that the fund’s capital structure is related to its systemic risk contribution, and, furthermore, that hedge funds with a high systemic risk contribution tend to deliver extremely poor performance during the times of financial distress. The fourth essay examines the impact of share restrictions on hedge fund performance and risk-taking. The essay finds that hedge funds with a lockup period tend to take excess risk that is not compensated when performance is measured as a unit of risk taken by the hedge fund. In addition, the length of notice periods increases along with the illiquidity level of fund investments. Finally, hedge funds with a long notice period seem to be able to earn an illiquidity premium.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / It is often argued that women have a tendency to be more risk averse than men. This thesis looks deeper into this sophisticated relationship between women, men and money, and investigates the gender differences among U.S. hedge fund managers. Prior research has considered the relationship between mutual fund performance and fund manager characteristics focusing on age, tenure, and level of education. However, none of these previous studies have looked in depth at the hedge fund arena. I hypothesize that female fund managers take less risk and follow less extreme investment styles that remain more constant over time. This suggests that less trading by female managers takes place with lower portfolio turnover, and results in superior net returns. I expected female money managers to be less overconfident and therefore would then trade less. Despite the similarities between female and male managers, I found evidence supporting my hypothesis that gender does indeed influence the decision making process for both investors and the hedge fund management companies.

Recent studies find that mutual funds exhibit differential and persistent performance which is frequently attributed to superior managerial decision making. We extend the literature by examining the impact of the fund's management structure on performance outcomes. Specifically, we examine directly whether superior outcomes, in terms of risk-adjusted returns, may be explained by behavioral decision making theory that asserts that teams make better decisions than individuals. Empirical results are consistent with the classical decision making theory and the efficient market hypothesis.

The financial performance of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) strategies is heavily debated in the modern age. Due to lack of evidence on Swedish SRI performance, Swedish investors are uncertain about placing their financial assets in these strategies as they are afraid expected to sacrifice their financial return for doing good. The purpose of this study is to examine and evaluate the financial and risk-adjusted performance of Swedish registered SRI mutual equity funds compared to conventional mutual equity funds during 2010-2020. The study’s dataset consists of a total of 236 mutual equity funds, with a sample of 133 SRI funds and 103 conventional funds. Financial performance measures used in this study are alpha, estimated through the Carhart four-factor model, and the Sharpe Ratio. The analysis between SRI mutual equity funds and conventional mutual equity funds indicated an insignificant difference in both financial and risk-adjusted performance. Based on the evidence provided, the study concludes that Swedish investors who put ethical, environmental and social values into their investment decision making process do not have to sacrifice their expected financial return, nor will their investment entail a higher degree of risk.

In this dissertation, we examine whether the disposition effect, the tendency to sell winners and hold losers, exists among U.S. equity mutual funds and how the disposition effect influences fund performance and particularly flows. We find that a significant fraction (32%) of all funds exhibit some degree of disposition behavior. These funds underperform funds that are not disposition prone by 4-6% per year. Moreover, we find that the disposition effect has a significant impact on future fund flows. Without controlling for performance, disposition-prone funds experience 2-3% less flows each quarter than other funds. The difference in flows is probably due to poor performance of such funds. However, even after controlling for performance and other factors that potentially influence flows, funds with a high disposition effect experience 0.7-2% less flows than funds without such behavior. Past research has found that funds with low tax overhang garner larger inflows. Though disposition-prone funds are likely to have a lower tax overhang because they sell their winners quickly, we find that fund flows to disposition-prone funds are smaller than flows to non-disposition oriented funds after controlling for tax overhang. These results suggest that performance and tax efficiency as well as tax overhang are all important to mutual fund investors. / Ph. D.

In two unrelated papers, we examine different aspects of mutual fund performance and other issues. In the first chapter, we look at exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and how they differ from index funds in performance and tracking error. Using daily data and a more comprehensive sample than past research, we find abnormal returns associated with the ETFs are higher than the alphas of the index funds in most cases. The results are much more prevalent in funds that follow the S&P 500 than funds that do not. When examining the tracking errors, we find index funds are able to track their indexes much better than ETFs and domestic ETFs are better than ETFs that track international indexes. In our most significant finding, we find that tracking error affects fund flow in the following period. While fund flows are generally increasing for both ETFs and index funds, funds that track their respective index better increase their net assets by a larger percentage than funds that track their index less well. In the second chapter, we look at the differences in performance and characteristics of mutual funds as they relate to the manager's gender. Using a larger sample and different techniques than have been used in the past, we find some differences in our matched comparison which suggest female managers have a lower risk tolerance than males. Females also tend to hold a higher number of assets (stocks) and fewer assets in their top 10 holdings than do male managers. In, pooled regressions, we find weak, but significant evidence that current female fund managers, when analyzed as a group, show slightly lower performance than male managers. We then analyze performance within funds over time. Our most consistent result is that when changing the composition of fund management, regardless of gender, the new management has significantly greater performance than prior management. We also find some evidence, although not conclusive, that the percentage of female managers managing a fund is negatively related to the fund's performance over time. Finally, we find the determinants of abnormal returns cannot be attributed to the fund manager's gender.

Social responsibility has gained popularity during the past few years, and one aspect of it is what benefits and costs it brings to a socially responsible investor. The purpose of this study is to examine whether different SRI strategies used by mutual funds are related to financial performance. By using multiple regression analysis and a sample of 88 Swedish SRI mutual funds over the period from 2014 to 2018, we find that using SRI screens first reduces the financial performance, but then gains a slight rebound as the screening intensity increases, indicating a U-shaped relationship. Further, we find that environmental screens impact the financial performance positively, and engagement and voting in sustainability matters is also positively related to performance.

Morningstar is an independent provider of investment research and provide information on approximately 380 000 investment offerings about mutual funds. Morningstar are most known for their “star” rating system, which rates funds from the lowest 1-star to the highest 5-stars. Since investors frequently use fund data provided by Morningstar, we will evaluate whether investing in funds with higher fees and higher ratings would end up with higher returns. Examinations will be made if there is a relationship between mutual fund performance and the management fees within top-rated (5-star) funds and bottom-rated (1-&2-star). The mutual funds which are included in this thesis are United Kingdom (UK) managed and invested in three different markets; Asia-Pacific except-Japan, Europe except UK-Large Cap, and the United States (US) Market. This allows us to compare different markets at different stages of maturity. The results clearly show that the top-rated funds within all three markets outperformed the bottom-rated funds. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the investor in general will earn a higher return by paying a higher management fee (TER) for the top-rated funds in all regions. The results also show that the TER for the bottom-rated funds in Europe and US market is higher compared to the top-rated funds. This means that the investor will pay higher fees for funds that do not perform well.

Submitted by Raphael Anauate Ferraz de Sampaio (raphaelsampaio@gmail.com) on 2018-07-18T00:36:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese.pdf: 374374 bytes, checksum: 3132e669937f24138723b9fc6e638772 (MD5) / Rejected by Thais Oliveira (thais.oliveira@fgv.br), reason: Boa tarde, Raphael! Para que possamos aprovar seu trabalho, serão necessárias as seguintes alterações: - Na capa, na parte Superior, 3cm acima do seu nome, deve conter o nome da escola "FUNDAÇÃO GETULIO VARGAS" abaixo "ESCOLA DE ECONOMIA DE SÃO PAULO"; - Retirar a página em branco; - Retirar local e ano (São Paulo 2018) da página que contém a Banca Examinadora. Por gentileza, alterar e submeter novamente. Para qualquer dúvida, entre em contato. Thais Oliveira - SRA mestradoprofissional@fgv.br - 3799-7764 on 2018-07-18T17:39:35Z (GMT) / Submitted by Raphael Anauate Ferraz de Sampaio (raphaelsampaio@gmail.com) on 2018-07-20T01:47:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese.pdf: 373526 bytes, checksum: 848ea54d6d9e831e1e2a35d565efc3b9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Thais Oliveira (thais.oliveira@fgv.br) on 2018-07-24T16:05:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese.pdf: 373526 bytes, checksum: 848ea54d6d9e831e1e2a35d565efc3b9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzane Guimarães (suzane.guimaraes@fgv.br) on 2018-07-24T16:23:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese.pdf: 373526 bytes, checksum: 848ea54d6d9e831e1e2a35d565efc3b9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-24T16:23:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese.pdf: 373526 bytes, checksum: 848ea54d6d9e831e1e2a35d565efc3b9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-26 / Whether firms benefit from socially responsible actions is under debate over the last few decades. Real estate is an important class of assets on investors portfolios and also largely contributes to waste generation, energy consumption and has a significant impact on health, because people spend several hours of their days at the office or at home. In this paper I explore whether brazilian FIIs (funds that invest in real estate just like american REITs) with greener portfolios show better stock returns and operating efficiency. I extract properties owned by each fund and its financials from CVM3 and LEED scores of each property from USGBC4 . I run a set of fixed-effects regressions of stock return, asset and equity turnovers on the share of green properties for each REIT over the 2001–2017 period and detect an approximate 1% increase in stock return given a 1% increase in portfolio greenness, but find no evidence of increased operating performance. Another model, accounting for endogeneity of past returns is developed and shows no relationship between greeness and returns or operating performance. / Se empresas que exercem práticas socialmente responsáveis se beneficiam em relação a suas concorrentes é tema sob debate, no mercado e na academia, já há algumas décadas. O mercado imobiliário em particular constitui uma importante classe de ativos, pois ocupa fatia considerável da carteira de investidores e traz consigo relevantes impactos socio-ambientais. São exemplos destes a geração de lixo, o consumo energético e impactos no sistema de saúde: com o avanço da urbanização e do terceiro setor na economia, as pessoas passam cada vez mais horas de seus dias em escritórios ou em casa. Nesse artigo, exploro a seguinte questão: fundos de investimento imobiliários (FIIs) investindo em propriedades ambientalmente certificadas têm melhor performance financeira e/ou operacional? Extraio as propriedades e dados financeiros da CVM 1 e verifico na base dados USGBC 2 se há certificação para cada propriedade e qual foi a pontuação obtida. Rodo um conjunto de regressões de efeito fixo relacionando performance financeira (retorno contábil das cotas) e performance operacional (razão entre fluxo de caixa operacional e ativo/patrimônio líquido) à porcentagem de propriedades certificadas de cada fundo no período 2001-2017. Detecto um aumento de aproximadamente 1% no retorno financeiro dado 1% mais greenness, mas não encontro evidência de melhora operacional. Outro modelo, levando em consideração um potencial problema de endogeneidade de retornos passados é desenvolvido e não mostra qualquer relação significativa entre greenness e performance financeira ou operacional.

Conscious customers and the threat of regulations have compelled capital markets around the world to increase their sustainability focus. Today, a fund manager must know how to measure and communicate the sustainability of her fund’s portfolio, which raises the question of how such measurement should be designed? By interviewing decision makers at one of Sweden’s major fund management firms and examining existing sustainability metrics, we identify the key features practitioners want from a sustainability measurement and discuss how existing metrics relate to this. We find that there is an increased need for: (i) capturing the positive contributions the companies in the portfolio have towards a sustainable development, (ii) including each company’s internal capabilities, which reflects important information about the likelihood of future contributions, (iii) relevant peer groups in order to understand the context of a company’s score, and (iv) understanding that sustainability is not a one dimensional issue and therefore should not be treated as one. To meet this need, we argue that the emerging group of metrics based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals could be used as a complement to the currently used risk-focused sustainability metrics. / Medvetna konsumenter och förväntade regleringar har tvingat kapitalmarknader runt om i världen att öka sitt hållbarhetsfokus. Idag ställs det krav på fondförvaltare att mäta och kommunicera sina fonders hållbarhet, vilket ger följdfrågan, hur ska ett sådant hållbarhetsmått vara konstruerat? Genom intervjuer med beslutsfattare på ett av Sveriges ledande fondbolag och en genomgång av befintliga hållbarhetsmått, har vi identifierat några nyckelfaktorer som de vill att ett hållbarhetsmått ska bestå av samt fört en diskussion kring hur de befintliga mätvärdena relaterar till dem. Vi finner ett ökat behov av: (i) att mäta de positiva effekterna ett företag har mot en hållbar utveckling, (ii) inkludering av företagets hållbarhetspotential, vilket påverkar sannolikheten för framtida bidrag, (iii) relevanta jämförelsegrupper för att kunna förstå ett företags bidrag, och (iv) ökad förståelse för att hållbarhet inte är ett endimensionellt problem och därför inte ska hanteras som ett sådant. För att uppnå detta argumenterar vi för att mätvärden baserade på Förenta Nationernas `Sustainable Development Goals' kan användas som ett komplement till de riskfokuserade hållbarhetsmått som används i hög utsträckning idag.