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Journal of Finance Vol. 62 No. 3 2007

Participation Costs and the Sensitivity of Fund Flows to Past Performance

Jennifer Huang1; Kelsey D. Wei1; Hong Yan2,3

1 The University of Texas at Austin · 2 University of South Carolina · 3 Island Hospital

Abstract

We present a simple rational model to highlight the effect of investors' participation costs on the response of mutual fund flows to past fund performance. By incorporating participation costs into a model in which investors learn about managers' ability from past returns, we show that mutual funds with lower participation costs have a higher flow sensitivity to medium performance and a lower flow sensitivity to high performance than their higher‐cost peers. Using various fund characteristics as proxies for the reduction in participation costs, we provide empirical evidence supporting the model's implications for the asymmetric flow‐performance relationship.

DOI
10.1111/j.1540-6261.2007.01236.x
Volume
62
Issue
3
Pages
1273-1311
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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