Using mergers as shocks to fund size, I analyze the return-to-scale property of mutual funds. I find that acquiring funds’ performance deteriorates after experiencing a positive shock in size resulting from mergers, and liquidity plays an important role in the negative relationship between size and performance. I also find that the decline in performance is not due to higher performance prior to the merger, nor driven by higher integration costs after the event. These findings are consistent with mutual funds having decreasing returns to scale and thus provide empirical evidence that supports the theoretical model of Berk and Green (2004).

We hypothesize that greater economic policy uncertainty (EPU) leads to increases in unhealthy behaviors by lowering individuals’ impulse control. Based on 6.1 million interviews over 22 years, our analysis reveals a positive relation between EPU and the propensity to make poor lifestyle choices, including higher rates of alcohol consumption, a larger number of drinks consumed, and greater binge drinking. EPU has long-lasting effects on drinking behavior, consistent with habit formation. Moreover, the relation is stronger for younger individuals whose habits are more malleable. We find similar results when using smoking rates to measure unhealthy choices.

We examine whether superior understanding of technological innovation is a source of mutual fund managers’ ability to garner positive abnormal returns. Consistent with our hypothesis, the inter-quintile annual net Carhart alpha spread for mutual funds sorted on changes in the technological similarity (TS) of their portfolio holdings is 282 basis points. Moreover, because changes in TS are largely orthogonal to other predictors of mutual fund success (e.g., industry concentration, active share, fund R 2 , and lag fund alpha), changes in TS can be combined with other measures to help identify the best performing funds.