PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Andrew D Clare AU - Nick Motson TI - Locking in the Profits or Putting It All on Black? <em>An Empirical Investigation into the Risk-Taking Behavior of Hedge Fund Managers</em> AID - 10.3905/JAI.2009.12.2.007 DP - 2009 Sep 30 TA - The Journal of Alternative Investments PG - 7--25 VI - 12 IP - 2 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/12/2/7.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/12/2/7.full AB - The ideal fee structure aligns the incentives of the investor with those of the fund manager. Mutual funds typically only charge a management fee that is a proportion of the funds under management. Hedge funds, on the other hand, generally change an incentive fee that is a fraction of the fund’s return each year in excess of the high-water mark. The justification generally given for these incentive fees is that they provide the manager with the incentive to target absolute returns. As these incentive fees can be considered a call option on the performance of the fund, it is possible that the managers’ incentives might vary according to the delta of this option. A number of articles have examined the optimal investment strategies of money managers in the presence of incentive fees within theoretical frameworks with seemingly conflicting results. Using a large database of hedge fund returns, the authors examine the risk taking behavior of hedge fund managers in response to both their past returns relative to their high-water mark and their past returns relative to their peer group. An attempt is made to reconcile these results with the theoretical frameworks proposed.TOPICS: Real assets/alternative investments/private equity, risk management, in portfolio management, performance measurement