IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cfrwps/0507.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Status quo bias and the number of alternatives: An empirical illustration from the mutual fund industry

Author

Listed:
  • Kempf, Alexander
  • Ruenzi, Stefan

Abstract

We examine the extent of the Status Quo Bias (SQB) in a real-world repeated decision situation. Individuals who are subject to a SQB tend to choose an alternative that was chosen previously (i.e. their status quo), even if it is not the optimal choice any more. We examine the US equity mutual fund market and find strong evidence for the existence of a SQB in this market. Furthermore, the SQB is more severe in segments where there are more funds to choose from. Thereby, we deliver the first empirical confirmation of the experimental result of Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988), that the SQB positively depends on the number of alternatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan, 2005. "Status quo bias and the number of alternatives: An empirical illustration from the mutual fund industry," CFR Working Papers 05-07, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:0507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/57747/1/699911834.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    2. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    3. Bergstresser, Daniel & Poterba, James, 2002. "Do after-tax returns affect mutual fund inflows?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 381-414, March.
    4. Guercio, Diane Del & Tkac, Paula A., 2008. "Star Power: The Effect of Monrningstar Ratings on Mutual Fund Flow," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 907-936, December.
    5. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    6. Harless, David W. & Peterson, Steven P., 1998. "Investor behavior and the persistence of poorly-performing mutual funds," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 257-276, November.
    7. Alexander Kempf & Stefan Ruenzi, 2004. "Family Matters: The Performance Flow Relationship in the Mutual Fund Industry," Finance 0404012, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 May 2004.
    8. Woerheide, Walt, 1982. "Investor Response to Suggested Criteria for the Selection of Mutual Funds," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 129-137, March.
    9. Matos, Pedro Pinto & Massa, Massimo & Gaspar, José-Miguel, 2004. "Favouritism in Mutual Fund Families? Evidence on Strategic Cross-Fund Subsidization," CEPR Discussion Papers 4788, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qureshi, Salman Ali & Rehman, Kashif ur & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran, 2012. "Factors Affecting Investment Decision Making of Equity Fund Managers," MPRA Paper 60783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Lu, Jingyi & Xie, Xiaofei, 2014. "To change or not to change: A matter of decision maker’s role," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 47-55.
    3. Anton Vaskovskyi, 2021. "Analysis of the Status Quo Behavioural Concept During the Global Economic Crisis," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2021(2), pages 133-155.
    4. Anton Vaskovskyi, . "Analysis of the Status Quo Behavioural Concept During the Global Economic Crisis," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 0.
    5. Tehila Kogut & Momi Dahan, 2012. "Do you look forward to retirement? Motivational biases in pension decisions," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(3), pages 282-291, May.
    6. Alexander Kempf & Stefan Ruenzi, 2008. "Family Matters: Rankings Within Fund Families and Fund Inflows," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1‐2), pages 177-199, January.
    7. Mark Dean & Ozgur Kibris & Yusufcan Masatlioglu, 2014. "Limited Attention and Status Quo Bias," Working Papers 2014-11, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:3:p:282-291 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander Kempf & Stefan Ruenzi, 2004. "Family Matters: The Performance Flow Relationship in the Mutual Fund Industry," Finance 0404012, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 May 2004.
    2. Alexander Kempf & Stefan Ruenzi, 2008. "Family Matters: Rankings Within Fund Families and Fund Inflows," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1‐2), pages 177-199, January.
    3. Nanda, Vikram K. & Wang, Z. Jay & Zheng, Lu, 2009. "The ABCs of mutual funds: On the introduction of multiple share classes," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 329-361, July.
    4. Stefan Ruenzi, 2005. "Mutual Fund Growth in Standard and Specialist Market Segments," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 19(2), pages 153-167, August.
    5. Clemens Sialm & Laura T. Starks & Hanjiang Zhang, 2015. "Defined Contribution Pension Plans: Sticky or Discerning Money?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 805-838, April.
    6. Elton, Edwin J. & Gruber, Martin J., 2013. "Mutual Funds," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1011-1061, Elsevier.
    7. Manuel Ammann & Christopher Bauer & Sebastian Fischer & Philipp Müller, 2019. "The impact of the Morningstar Sustainability Rating on mutual fund flows," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(3), pages 520-553, June.
    8. Hu, May & Chao, Chi-Chur & Lim, Jin Hao, 2016. "Another explanation of the mutual fund fee puzzle," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 134-152.
    9. Ainulashikin Marzuki & Andrew C. Worthington, 2011. "Comparative fund flows for Malaysian Islamic and conventional domestic managed equity funds," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:201118, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    10. Will J. Armstrong & Egemen Genc & Marno Verbeek, 2019. "Going for Gold: An Analysis of Morningstar Analyst Ratings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2310-2327, May.
    11. Gupta, Nilesh & Mishra, Anil V & Jacob, Joshy, 2022. "Prospect theory preferences and global mutual fund flows," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Rakowski, David & Yamani, Ehab, 2021. "Endogeneity in the mutual fund flow–performance relationship: An instrumental variables solution," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 247-271.
    13. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Alexander Kempf & Stefan Ruenzi, 2008. "Tournaments in Mutual-Fund Families," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 1013-1036, April.
    15. David G. Shrider, 2009. "Running From a Bear: How Poor Stock Market Performance Affects the Determinants of Mutual Fund Flows," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7‐8), pages 987-1006, September.
    16. Jason P. Berkowitz & Patrick J. Schorno & Dmitry A. Shapiro, 2017. "Characteristics of mutual funds with extreme performance," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(1), pages 50-60, September.
    17. Linh Tran Dieu, 2015. "A Comparison of Bank and Non-bank Funds in the French Market," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 47(3), pages 273-294, June.
    18. Ammann, Manuel & Bauer, Christopher & Fischer, Sebastian & Mueller, Philipp, 2017. "Tha Impact of the Morningstar Sustainability Rating on Mutual Fund Flows," Working Papers on Finance 1718, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Nov 2017.
    19. Shinozawa, Yoshikatsu & Vivian, Andrew, 2015. "Determinants of money flows into investment trusts in Japan," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 138-161.
    20. Carlos F. Alves & Victor Mendes, 2006. "Mutual fund flows’ performance reaction: does convexity apply to small markets?," FEP Working Papers 204, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Status Quo Bias; Mutual Funds; Number of Alternatives; Performance Flow Relationship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:0507. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfkoede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.