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Working Paper
Passive Ownership and Short Selling
We exploit quasi-exogenous variation in passive ownership around the Russell 1000/2000 cutoff to explore the causal effects of passive ownership on the securities lending market. We find that passive ownership causes an increase in lendable supply and short interest, while lending fees remain largely unchanged. The utilization ratio—i.e., the ratio of short interest over lendable supply—goes up, implying that shorting demand increases more than lendable supply. We argue that this additional demand results from an increase in the quality of lendable supply as passive funds are less likely ...
Working Paper
Fundamental Arbitrage under the Microscope: Evidence from Detailed Hedge Fund Transaction Data
We exploit detailed transaction and position data for a sample of long-short equity hedge funds to study the trading activity of fundamental investors. We find that hedge funds exhibit skill in opening positions, but that they close their positions too early, thereby forgoing about a third of the trades’ potential profitability. We explain this behavior with the limits of arbitrage: hedge funds close positions early in order to reallocate their capital to more profitable investments and/or to accommodate tightened financial constraints. Consistent with this view, we document that hedge ...