Javier Gil-Bazo

The Performance of Socially Responsible Mutual Funds: The Role of Fees And Management Companies

In this article, we shed light on the debate about the financial performance of socially responsible investment (SRI) mutual funds by separately analyzing the contributions of before-fee performance and fees to SRI funds’ performance, and by investigating the role played by fund management companies in the determination of those variables. We apply the matching estimator methodology to obtain our results and find that in the period 1997–2005, US SRI funds had better before- and after-fee performance than conventional funds with similar characteristics. The differences, however, are driven exclusively by SRI funds run by management companies specialized in SRI. While these funds significantly outperform similar conventional funds, funds run by companies not specialized in SRI underperform their matched conventional funds. We find no significant differences in fees between SRI and conventional funds except in one case: SRI funds are cheaper than conventional funds run by the same management company.

PRICE DYNAMICS, INFORMATIONAL EFFICIENCY, AND WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN CONTINUOUS DOUBLE-AUCTION MARKETS

This paper studies the properties of the continuous double‐auction trading mechanism using an artificial market populated by heterogeneous computational agents. In particular, we investigate how changes in the population of traders and in market microstructure characteristics affect price dynamics, information dissemination, and distribution of wealth across agents. In our computer‐simulated market only a small fraction of the population observe the risky assets fundamental value with noise, while the rest of the agents try to forecast the assets price from past transaction data. In contrast to other artificial markets, we assume that the risky asset pays no dividend, thus agents cannot learn from past transaction prices and subsequent dividend payments. We find that private information can effectively disseminate in the market unless market regulation prevents informed investors from short selling or borrowing the asset, and these investors do not constitute a critical mass. In such case, not only are markets less efficient informationally, but may even experience crashes and bubbles. Finally, increased informational efficiency has a negative impact on informed agents trading profits and a positive impact on artificial intelligent agents profits.

The value of the ‘swap’ feature in equity default swaps

When equity default swap (EDS) contracts were first included in a rated collateralized debt obligation (CDO) deal, some critics doubted the originality of the product. In fact, EDSs are equivalent to already existing binary barrier options on equity, except the premium is not paid upfront, but over time, and conditional on the trigger event not having occurred. Therefore, as opposed to existing options, the buyer of an EDS: (1) postpones payment for protection, and (2) purchases not only protection against a sharp drop in the price of equity, but also the right to cease payments in case the barrier is hit. This paper derives the closed-form pricing formula for equity default swap spreads under the Black–Scholes assumptions, and then quantifies the fraction of the EDS spread actually due to the ‘swap’ feature of the contract for plausible parameter values. It is found that the extra spread due to the swap nature of EDSs is economically significant only for high volatility, high trigger levels, and long time-to-maturity. The impact of interest rates on the value of the ‘swap’ feature is almost exclusively due to the postponement of payments.

Formación de precios en un mercado artificial de doble subasta continua

RESUMEN En este trabajo se estudia la formación de precios en un mercado artificial de doble subasta continua con agentes heterogéneos, tanto en términos de eficiencia informativa como en términos de sus propiedades estadísticas. A diferencia de otros mercados artificiales propuestos en la literatura, en este mercado existe información asimétrica tanto ex-ante como ex-post, puesto que los agentes no informados observan únicamente precios de transacción pasados. En consecuencia, su capacidad predictiva sobre el proceso fundamental está limitada por el grado de eficiencia informativa de los precios de transacción, endógena al mercado. Nuestro mercado es capaz de replicar los hechos estilizados observados comúnmente en las series reales de rendimientos (colas gruesas, persistencia en la volatilidad, correlación serial y efectos ARCH), y nos permite extraer predicciones teóricas con respecto al efecto de la distribución de la población de agentes sobre dichas propiedades estadísticas. Una diferencia del trabajo es la modelización del precio fundamental como un proceso estocástico, lo cual permite calibrar los parámetros del mercado artificial a datos reales. La principal conclusión del trabajo es que el mecanismo de doble subasta continua permite un elevado grado de eficiencia informativa cuando existe información asimétrica, además se observa que la eficiencia del mercado puede mejorar introduciendo inversores sin información privilegiada pero que explotan la información contenida en los precios de transacción pasados (por ejemplo, analistas técnicos y agentes con capacidad de aprendizaje), aunque ello disminuya el valor de la información privada y por tanto la riqueza de aquellos con información privilegiada.

On the Relationship between Price and Quality in the US Mutual Fund Industry: Evidence from the 1992-2003 Period

With a total value of assets under management above US

What drives information dissemination in continuous double auction markets

7 trillion by yearend 2003 and approximately 50 percent of all American households owning mutual fund shares, it should come as no surprise that the level of competition in the industry and, more specifically, the cost of mutual fund ownership, has become a source of deep concern for industry regulators in recent years. These concerns were reflected in two separate reports issued by the US General Accounting Office (GAO, 2000) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, 2000), which recommended improved fee disclosure (such as reporting fees in dollar rather than percentage terms) as well as other measures aimed at enhancing fee competition and transparency in industry practices. As a response to this increasing interest, the House of Representatives passed the HR 2420 bill, the “Mutual Funds Integrity and Fee Transparency Act of 2003”, which addressed mutual fund fees and costs as well as corporate governance and management integrity of mutual funds (see SEC, 2004).

When Cheaper is Better: Fee Determination in the Market for Equity Mutual Funds

In this paper, we investigate further the way information disseminates from informed to uninformed traders in a market populated by heterogeneous boundedly rational agents. In order to achieve the goal, a computer simulated market where only a small fraction of the population observe the risky assets fundamental value with noise was constructed, while the rest of agents try to forecast the assets price from past transaction data. The paper departs from previous studies in that the risky asset does not pay a dividend every period, so agents cannot learn from past transaction prices and subsequent dividend payments. The main finding is that information can potentially disseminate in the market as long as: (1) informed investors trades tilt transaction prices in the fundamental path direction; and (2) the median investors expectation is very responsive to transaction prices. Otherwise, markets may display crashes or bubbles. It is found that the first condition requires a minimal amount of informed investors, and is severely limited by short selling and borrowing constraints.