What characteristics of mutual funds do investors care about? In addition to performance and fees, we show that investors exhibit a clear preference for managers who adhere to the strategies they describe in their prospectuses. Capital flows respond negatively when funds diverge from the average holdings of their text-based strategy peer groups, but positively when they outperform those peer averages. We identify this effect using a novel instrumental variables approach, and show that funds face a delicate trade-off between keeping their promises and outperforming their peers who make similar promises.

中文翻译：

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共同基金行业的违背承诺、竞争和资本配置


投资者关心共同基金的哪些特点？除了业绩和费用之外，我们还表明，投资者明显偏爱那些坚持他们在招股说明书中描述的策略的经理。当基金偏离基于文本的策略同行的平均持仓时，资本流动会做出负面反应，但当它们的表现优于这些同行平均水平时，资本流动会做出积极反应。我们使用一种新的工具变量方法确定了这种效应，并表明基金在信守承诺和跑赢做出类似承诺的同行之间面临着微妙的权衡。