IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ris/jofitr/1421.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economists’ hubris — the case of equity asset management

Author

Listed:

Abstract

In this, the fourth article in the economists’ hubris paper series, we look at the contributions of academic thought to the field of asset management. We find that while the theoretical aspects of the modern portfolio theory are valuable, they offer little insight into how the asset management industry actually operates, how its executives are compensated, and how their performances are measured. We find that very few, if any, portfolio managers look for the efficiency frontier in their asset allocation processes, mainly because it is almost impossible to locate in reality. They seem to base their decisions on a combination of gut feelings and analyst recommendations. We also find that the performance evaluation methodologies used are simply unable to provide investors with the necessary tools to compare portfolio managers’ performances in any meaningful way. We suggest a novel way of evaluating manager performance which compares a manager against himself, as suggested by Lord Myners. Using the concept of inertia, an asset manager’s end of period performance is compared to the performance of their portfolio assuming their initial portfolio had been held, with-out transactions, during this period. We believe that this will provide clients with a more reliable performance comparison tool and might prevent unnecessary trading of portfolios. Finally, given that the performance evaluation models simply fail in practice, we suggest that accusing investors who look for raw returns when deciding who to invest their assets with is simply unfair.

Suggested Citation

  • Shojai, Shahin & Feiger, George & Kumar, Rajesh, 2010. "Economists’ hubris — the case of equity asset management," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 29, pages 9-16.
  • Handle: RePEc:ris:jofitr:1421
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597685
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(2), pages 215-268, November.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    3. Hand, David & Yu, Keming, 2009. "Justifying adverse actions with new scorecard technologies," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 26, pages 13-17.
    4. Shojai, Shahin, 2009. "Economists' Hubris - The Case of Mergers and Acquisitions," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 26, pages 4-12.
    5. Shojai, Shahin & Feiger, George, 2009. "Economists’ hubris – the case of asset pricing," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 27, pages 9-13.
    6. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91, March.
    7. Frank Fabozzi & Vinod Kothari, 2007. "Securitization: The Tool of Financial Transformation," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2495, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Jul 2007.
    8. Keith Kuester & Stefan Mittnik & Marc S. Paolella, 2006. "Value-at-Risk Prediction: A Comparison of Alternative Strategies," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 53-89.
    9. Dizdarevic, Predrag & Shojai, Shahin, 2004. "Integrated data architecture — the end game," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 11, pages 62-65.
    10. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    11. Boudoukh, Jacob, et al, 1997. "Pricing Mortgage-Backed Securities in a Multifactor Interest Rate Environment: A Multivariate Density Estimation Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(2), pages 405-446.
    12. Hunter, Greg, 2009. "Anatomy of the 2008 financial crisis: an economic analysis postmortem," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 27, pages 45-48.
    13. Benjamin J. Keys & Tanmoy Mukherjee & Amit Seru & Vikrant Vig, 2010. "Did Securitization Lead to Lax Screening? Evidence from Subprime Loans," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 307-362.
    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. Stein, Jerome L., 2011. "The crisis, Fed, Quants and stochastic optimal control," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 272-280, January.

    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. Shojai, Shahin & Feiger, George, 2010. "Economists’ hubris – the case of risk management," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 28, pages 27-35.
    2. Shojai, Shahin & Feiger, George, 2011. "Economists’ Hubris – The Case of Award Winning Finance Literature," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 31, pages 9-17.
    3. Altunbas, Yener & Manganelli, Simone & Marques-Ibanez, David, 2017. "Realized bank risk during the great recession," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 29-44.
    4. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    5. Neuhann, Daniel, 2017. "Macroeconomic effects of secondary market trading," Working Paper Series 2039, European Central Bank.
    6. Giampaolo Gabbi & Alesia Kalbaska & Alessandro Vercelli, 2014. "Factors generating and transmitting the financial crisis: The role of incentives: securitization and contagion," Working papers wpaper56, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    7. Manganelli, Simone & Altunbas, Yener & Marqués-Ibáñez, David, 2011. "Bank risk during the financial crisis: do business models matter?," Working Paper Series 1394, European Central Bank.
    8. Victoria Ivashina & Boris Vallee, 2020. "Weak Credit Covenants," NBER Working Papers 27316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Neuhann, Daniel, 2016. "Macroeconomic effects of secondary market trading," ESRB Working Paper Series 25, European Systemic Risk Board.
    10. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Sam Langfield & Marco Pagano & Ricardo Reis & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Dimitri Vayanos, 2017. "ESBies: safety in the tranches," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 32(90), pages 175-219.
    11. Gabriel Jiménez & Steven Ongena & José‐Luis Peydró & Jesús Saurina, 2014. "Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty‐Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk‐Taking?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(2), pages 463-505, March.
    12. Anna Grodecka-Messi, 2019. "Subprime borrowers, securitization and the transmission of business cycles," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1600-1654, November.
    13. Ding, Wenzhi & Levine, Ross & Lin, Chen & Xie, Wensi, 2021. "Corporate immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 802-830.
    14. Van Bekkum, Sjoerd & Gabarró, Marc & Irani, Rustom & Peydró, José-Luis, 2019. "Take It to the Limit? The Effects of Household Leverage Caps," EconStor Preprints 216797, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. Malherbe, Frederic & McMahon, Michael, 2024. "Beyond Pangloss: Financial sector origins of inefficient economic booms," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    16. Argandoña, Antonio, 2013. "Irving Fisher: un gran economista," IESE Research Papers D/1082, IESE Business School.
    17. Giovanni Dell'Ariccia, 2012. "Property Prices and Bank Risk-taking," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Frank Packer & Callan Windsor (ed.),Property Markets and Financial Stability, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    18. Philip E. Strahan, 2013. "Too Big to Fail: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 43-61, November.
    19. Calomiris, Charles W. & Flandreau, Marc & Laeven, Luc, 2016. "Political foundations of the lender of last resort: A global historical narrative," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    20. İbrahim Yarba & Z. Nuray Güner, 2020. "Leverage dynamics: Do financial development and government leverage matter? Evidence from a major developing economy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 2473-2507, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asset management; Fund management; Modern Portfolio Theory; Performance evaluation models; Efficient Market Hypothesis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • 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:ris:jofitr:1421. 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: Prof. Shahin Shojai The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Prof. Shahin Shojai to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.capco.com/ .

    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.