Prior studies have documented that pension plan sponsors often monitor a fund’s performance relative to a benchmark. We use a first-difference approach to show that in an effort to beat benchmarks, fund managers controlling large pension assets tend to increase their exposure to high-beta stocks, while aiming to maintain tracking errors around the benchmark. The findings support theoretical conjectures that benchmarking can lead managers to tilt their portfolio toward high-beta stocks and away from low-beta stocks, which can reinforce observed pricing anomalies.

Prior studies have documented that pension plan sponsors often monitor a fund's performance relative to a benchmark. We use a first-difference approach to show that in an effort to beat benchmarks, fund managers controlling large pension assets tend to increase their exposure to high-beta stocks, while aiming to maintain tracking errors around the benchmark. The findings support theoretical conjectures that benchmarking can lead managers to tilt their portfolio toward high-beta stocks and away from low-beta stocks, which can reinforce observed pricing anomalies.

ABSTRACT We show that labor search frictions are an important determinant of the cross‐section of equity returns. Empirically, we find that firms with low loadings on labor market tightness outperform firms with high loadings by 6% annually. We propose a partial equilibrium labor market model in which heterogeneous firms make dynamic employment decisions under labor search frictions. In the model, loadings on labor market tightness proxy for priced time‐variation in the efficiency of the aggregate matching technology. Firms with low loadings are more exposed to adverse matching efficiency shocks and require higher expected stock returns.