김수헌 연구실은 자산가격결정, 금융계량, 뮤추얼펀드와 기관투자자 행동, ESG 투자 실효성 분석 등을 중심으로 현대 금융시장의 구조와 자본배분 메커니즘을 실증적으로 연구하며, 대규모 주식 및 펀드 데이터를 활용한 정교한 계량 방법론을 통해 위험 프리미엄, 차익거래 기회, 투자자 의사결정의 경제적 의미를 규명하는 데 주력하고 있다.
Capital Allocation and the Market for Mutual Funds: Inspecting the Mechanism
Jules H. van Binsbergen, Jeong Ho Kim, Soohun Kim
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Abstract We exploit heterogeneity in decreasing returns to scale (DRS) parameters across mutual funds to analyze the importance of scalability for investors’ capital allocation decisions. We find strong evidence that steeper DRS attenuate flow sensitivity to performance. We calibrate a rational model of active fund management and show that a large fraction of cross-sectional variation in assets-under-management is due to investors anticipating the effects of scale on return performance. We conclude that DRS play a key role in achieving equilibrium in the intermediated investment management market.
Large Sample Estimators of the Stochastic Discount Factor
Soohun Kim, Robert A. Korajczyk
IF 2.2 (2024)
Journal of Financial Econometrics
Abstract We propose estimators of the stochastic discount factor using large cross-sections of individual stocks. We introduce a short time-block structure on a large N, T panel to exploit unbalanced panels of individual stock returns and suggest a novel bias correction to achieve the consistency of our estimators. Our estimators can accommodate pre-specified traded and nontraded factors, and latent factors. The estimators perform well in simulations. We apply our estimators to return data for U.S. individual stocks over a 50-year sample period and identify those factors in popular asset pricing models that command significant premia. A number of proposed nontraded factors have insignificant risk premia. Contrary to many studies, we find the market factor has a significant premium, as do profitability, value, and momentum factors.
Analyzing Active Fund Managers’ Commitment to ESG: Evidence from the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment
Soohun Kim, Aaron Yoon
IF 5.4 (2022)
Management Science
The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) is the largest global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiative in the asset-management industry to date. We analyze what happens after active U.S. mutual funds sign the PRI to assess whether they exhibit ESG implementation. We find that PRI signatories attract a large fund inflow, but we do not observe improvements in fund-level ESG scores or fund returns. We consider a battery of ways to proxy for funds’ ESG incorporation (e.g., entry/exit, screening, engagement, voting for pro-ESG proposals), but fail to observe evidence of meaningful on average follow-through. Next, we explore cross-sectional fund characteristics and find that only quant funds exhibit small improvements in ESG performance versus other funds, mainly through buying high-ESG-performing stocks. Furthermore, we note that signatories are not superior performers in ESG issues prior to joining the PRI relative to non-PRI funds, but PRI affiliation tends to be widely advertised on company websites, marketing materials, and fund documents. Overall, a reasonable reader may perceive our findings as consistent with PRI funds’ greenwashing. We note, however, that what we uncover is based only on outcome-based measures and may miss some actual efforts of signatories. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4394 .