Hedge Fund Attrition, Survivorship Bias, and Performance: Perspectives from the Global Financial Crisis

39 Pages Posted: 17 Mar 2010

See all articles by Xiaoqing Eleanor Xu

Xiaoqing Eleanor Xu

Seton Hall University

Jiong Liu

TIAA-CREF

Anthony Loviscek

Seton Hall University - Department of Finance

Date Written: February 12, 2010

Abstract

The impact of the global financial crisis since 2007 has been deep and broad, blanketing the financial and economic landscape and hammering the hedge fund industry. Using both active and inactive hedge fund return data from the CISDM database from January of 1994 to March of 2009, we measure survivorship bias, account for attrition rates, estimate a multi-factor model to explain hedge fund performance, and conduct a cross-sectional probit analysis to predict hedge fund attrition during the crisis. Following prior research, we surprisingly do not find survivorship bias to be prevalent during the global financial crisis. Moving a step beyond the literature, however, we identify a hidden survivorship bias attributed to the lack of reporting during the final months of the eventual demise of a fund. We also find unprecedented attrition rates, along with record declines in assets under management and fund closures during the crisis. Using a multi-factor model with both linear and nonlinear risk factors, we find four structural breaks in the data: October of 1998, April of 2000, March of 2003, and February of 2007. Estimating the model for each of the five sub-periods and for the entire period, we find that hedge fund returns can be explained by the linear risk factors (such as the three factors of Fama and French model, the change in credit spread, and the term structure spread) and the non-linear trend-following risk factors of Fung and Hsieh (2001). The evidence also indicates that the average hedge fund manager did not deliver a significantly positive alpha during the crisis. In addition, the cross-sectional probit results reveal that the more seasoned the fund, the higher its pre-crisis return performance, and the more regularly audited its books, the lower was its probability of attrition during the crisis.

Keywords: Hedge Funds, Attrition, Survivorship Bias, Performance, Financial Crisis

JEL Classification: G11, G12

Suggested Citation

Xu, Xiaoqing Eleanor and Liu, Jiong and Loviscek, Anthony, Hedge Fund Attrition, Survivorship Bias, and Performance: Perspectives from the Global Financial Crisis (February 12, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1572116 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1572116

Xiaoqing Eleanor Xu (Contact Author)

Seton Hall University ( email )

Department of Finance, Stillman School of Business
400 South Orange Avenue
South Orange, NJ 07079
United States
973-761-9209 (Phone)
973-961-9217 (Fax)

Jiong Liu

TIAA-CREF

730 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017-3206
United States

Anthony Loviscek

Seton Hall University - Department of Finance ( email )

400 South Orange Avenue
South Orange, NJ 07079
United States
973-761-9127 (Phone)
201-761-9217 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://loviscto@shu.edu

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
1,261
Abstract Views
7,795
Rank
30,116
PlumX Metrics