IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecofin/v76y2025ics1062940825000130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mutual fund style drift measured using higher moments and its cash flow incentive

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Qi
  • Wang, Peng
  • Yang, Dong

Abstract

This paper evaluates the contribution of higher moment information to the identification of mutual fund investment styles. We develop a multi-objective optimization model that identifies fund investment styles by simultaneously considering returns and higher moments risks. Our results indicate that this model, by incorporating variance and skewness, can more accurately identify fund investment styles. We then quantify the degree of style drift exhibited by funds utilizing the proposed model. Employing a dataset of 1327 open-ended equity funds in China between 2008 and 2023, we find that style drift is both pervasive and persistent. Funds susceptible to style drift tend to be smaller, have higher portfolio turnover and expense ratios, and are supervised by less seasoned managers. In addition, we explore how cash flows affect funds’ style drift behavior. Our analysis reveals a positive relationship between low cash inflows and the magnitude of style drift. This finding remains consistent after addressing potential endogeneity concerns. Finally, we find no support for the hypothesis that style drift enhances future fund performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Qi & Wang, Peng & Yang, Dong, 2025. "Mutual fund style drift measured using higher moments and its cash flow incentive," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecofin:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1062940825000130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.najef.2025.102373
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062940825000130
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.najef.2025.102373?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    --->

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2014. "Window dressing in mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 11-07 [rev.3], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    2. Sha, Yezhou, 2020. "The devil in the style: Mutual fund style drift, performance and common risk factors," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 264-273.
    3. Herrmann, Ulf & Scholz, Hendrik, 2013. "Short-term persistence in hybrid mutual fund performance: The role of style-shifting abilities," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2314-2328.
    4. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    5. K. J. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2009. "How Active Is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3329-3365, September.
    6. Jan Annaert & Geert Van Campenhout, 2007. "Time Variation in Mutual Fund Style Exposures," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 11(4), pages 633-661.
    7. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    8. Amaya, Diego & Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Vasquez, Aurelio, 2015. "Does realized skewness predict the cross-section of equity returns?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 135-167.
    9. Harvey, Campbell R. & Siddique, Akhtar, 1999. "Autoregressive Conditional Skewness," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 465-487, December.
    10. Yi, Li & Yan, Yuelin, 2024. "Fund tournaments and style drift," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    11. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    12. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2006. "How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2370, Yale School of Management, revised 01 May 2009.
    13. Zhang, Ping & Lv, Zi-Xu, 2024. "Is style drift informative? Evidence from mutual funds in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    14. Chua, Angeline Kim Pei & Tam, On Kit, 2020. "The shrouded business of style drift in active mutual funds," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Ha, Yeonjeong & Ko, Kwangsoo, 2017. "Why do fund managers increase risk?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 108-116.
    16. Hong, Jiawei & Yu, Xiaojian & Xiao, Weilin & Zhang, Xili, 2022. "The dispersion of beta estimates and the investors’ heterogeneous Beliefs:Evidence from the stock market in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 540-550.
    17. Kerry Back & Alan D Crane & Kevin Crotty, 2018. "Skewness Consequences of Seeking Alpha," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(12), pages 4720-4761.
    18. George J. Jiang & Bing Liang & Huacheng Zhang, 2022. "Hedge Fund Manager Skill and Style-Shifting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 2284-2307, March.
    19. Langlois, Hugues, 2020. "Measuring skewness premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 399-424.
    20. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    21. Alexander Eastman & Brian Lucey, 2008. "Skewness and asymmetry in futures returns and volumes," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(10), pages 777-800.
    22. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    23. Harvey, Campbell R., 1989. "Time-varying conditional covariances in tests of asset pricing models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 289-317.
    24. Kurniawan, Meinanda & How, Janice & Verhoeven, Peter, 2016. "Fund governance and style drift," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 59-72.
    25. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    26. Louis K. C. Chan & Hsiu-Lang Chen & Josef Lakonishok, 2002. "On Mutual Fund Investment Styles," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1407-1437.
    27. Agarwal, Vikas & Jiang, Lei & Wen, Quan, 2022. "Why Do Mutual Funds Hold Lottery Stocks?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(3), pages 825-856, May.
    28. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    29. Jennifer Huang & Clemens Sialm & Hanjiang Zhang, 2011. "Risk Shifting and Mutual Fund Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(8), pages 2575-2616.
    30. Richard B. Evans, 2010. "Mutual Fund Incubation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1581-1611, August.
    31. Yang, Hui & Ferrer, Román, 2023. "Explosive behavior in the Chinese stock market: A sectoral analysis," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    32. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2005. "On the Industry Concentration of Actively Managed Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1983-2011, August.
    33. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2006. "How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2370, Yale School of Management, revised 01 May 2009.
    34. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    35. Wermers, Russ, 2012. "A matter of style: The causes and consequences of style drift in institutional portfolios," CFR Working Papers 12-04, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    36. Jordan, Bradford D. & Riley, Timothy B., 2015. "Volatility and mutual fund manager skill," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 289-298.
    37. Moreno, David & Rodríguez, Rosa, 2009. "The value of coskewness in mutual fund performance evaluation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1664-1676, September.
    38. Pattarin, Francesco & Paterlini, Sandra & Minerva, Tommaso, 2004. "Clustering financial time series: an application to mutual funds style analysis," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 353-372, September.
    39. Cao, Charles & Iliev, Peter & Velthuis, Raisa, 2017. "Style drift: Evidence from small-cap mutual funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-57.
    40. Sha, Yezhou & Wu, Xi, 2024. "Downward pressure, investment style and performance persistence of institutional investors," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    41. Liu, Jianxiang & Yi, WenYu, 2024. "Does the style drift caused by frequent cross-industry portfolio rebalancing harm fund performance? Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    42. Jun, Xiao & Li, Mingsheng & Yugang, Chen, 2017. "Catering to behavioral demand for dividends and its potential agency issue," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB), pages 269-291.
    43. Vikas Agarwal & Gerald D. Gay & Leng Ling, 2014. "Window Dressing in Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(11), pages 3133-3170.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Yi, Li & Yan, Yuelin, 2024. "Fund tournaments and style drift," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    2. Yi, Li & Xiao, Li & Liao, Yinkai, 2024. "Network centrality, style drift, and mutual fund performance," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PA).
    3. Yaozhi Chen & Honghong Wei, 2025. "Fund style drift and fund performance: Evidence from China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(2), pages 1-26, February.
    4. Zhang, Ping & Lv, Zi-Xu, 2024. "Is style drift informative? Evidence from mutual funds in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    5. Mercedes Alda, 2021. "The dilemma between fund‐style consistency and active management over the economic cycle. Evidence from pension funds," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 2219-2240, April.
    6. Bai, John Jianqiu & Tang, Yuehua & Wan, Chi & Yüksel, H. Zafer, 2022. "Fund manager skill in an era of globalization: Offshore concentration and fund performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 18-40.
    7. Herrmann, Ulf & Rohleder, Martin & Scholz, Hendrik, 2016. "Does style-shifting activity predict performance? Evidence from equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 112-130.
    8. Viktoriya Lantushenko & Edward Nelling, 2020. "New Positions in Mutual Fund Portfolios: Implications for Fund Alpha," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 161-198, December.
    9. Yanyu Guo & Zhicheng Zhang & Jizu Li & Huayun Du, 2024. "Research on Identification and Correction of Fund Investment Style Drift Based on FSD Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(5), pages 2605-2640, November.
    10. Jiang, George J. & Zaynutdinova, Gulnara R. & Zhang, Huacheng, 2021. "Stock-selection timing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    11. Jing Xie, 2024. "Stock-Picking by Mutual Funds: Evidence from Trading in Family-Controlled Firms," Working Papers 202411, University of Macau, Faculty of Business Administration.
    12. Li, Zhiyong & Rao, Xiao, 2023. "Exploring the zoo of predictors for mutual fund performance in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    14. Wolfgang Bessler & Thomas Conlon & Diego Víctor de Mingo‐López & Juan Carlos Matallín‐Sáez, 2022. "Mutual fund performance and changes in factor exposure," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 17-52, March.
    15. Pi‐Hsia Hung & Donald Lien & Yun‐Ju Chien, 2020. "Portfolio concentration and fund manager performance," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 423-451, July.
    16. Moneta, Fabio, 2015. "Measuring bond mutual fund performance with portfolio characteristics," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 223-242.
    17. Victor DeMiguel & Javier Gil-Bazo & Francisco J. Nogales & André A. P. Santos, 2021. "Can machine learning help to select portfolios of mutual funds?," Economics Working Papers 1772, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    18. Giuseppe Galloppo, 2021. "Size," Springer Books, in: Asset Allocation Strategies for Mutual Funds, chapter 0, pages 151-190, Springer.
    19. Verbeek, Marno & Wang, Yu, 2013. "Better than the original? The relative success of copycat funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3454-3471.
    20. Wang, Xiaoxiao, 2023. "Bank affiliation and mutual funds’ trading strategy distinctiveness," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Style drift; Higher moments; Variance; Skewness; Cash flow;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G29 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Other

    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:eee:ecofin:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1062940825000130. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620163 .

    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.