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Journal of Finance Vol. 75 No. 5 2020

The Mismatch Between Mutual Fund Scale and Skill

Yang Song1,2

1 Cornell University · 2 University of Hong Kong

Abstract

I demonstrate that skill and scale are mismatched among actively managed equity mutual funds. Many mutual fund investors confuse the effects of fund exposures to common systematic factors with managerial skill when allocating capital among funds. Active mutual funds with positive factor‐related past returns thus accumulate assets to the point that they significantly underperform. I also show that the negative aggregate benchmark‐adjusted performance of active equity mutual funds is driven mainly by these oversized funds.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.12950
Volume
75
Issue
5
Pages
2555-2589
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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