Look for people, not for alpha: mutual funds success and managers intellectual capital
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore whether individual intellectual capital of a fund manager allows mutual fund to outperform market.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample includes 85 Russian equity funds for the period of 2013. First, Jensen’s alpha for each fund has been calculated, and then cross-sectional regression analysis has been used. While only a part of fund managers publish biographic sketches, the authors use the Heckman procedure to control for self-selection issues.
Findings
The results support the idea that the individual characteristics indicate the possibility to earn abnormal alpha. Managers with economic education and with Moscow education perform better than others. Relationship between both fund performance measures and manager’s experience has inverted U-shape. Jensen’s alpha reaches its highest level at the point of 9 years, whereas beta – at 10 years of manager’s experience.
Research limitations/implications
Investigation can be improved by including more variables that influence the disclosure of managers’ personal information, for example, by conducting surveys. Additionally, cross-sectional data restrict the analysis.
Practical implications
The discovered characteristics of managers’ intellectual capital can be used as additional screening tool for the investor who is deciding on mutual fund choice in Russia. While individual intellectual capital is observable and more persistent in time in comparison with the past fund performance, such tool allows better decision-making.
Originality/value
This is the first paper that explores which characteristics of Russian fund managers are connected with higher abnormal return (measured by Jensen’s alpha) and risk (beta) of mutual funds.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Elena Shakina, Maria Molodchik, Angel Barajas, Dennis Coates, Félix J. López Iturriaga and Carlos M. Jardon for the valuable advice. This study comprises research findings from the project No15-18-20039 supported by the Russian Science Foundation.
Citation
Naidenova, I., Parshakov, P., Zavertiaeva, M. and Tomé, E. (2015), "Look for people, not for alpha: mutual funds success and managers intellectual capital", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 57-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/MBE-11-2014-0039
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited