We develop a new factor selection methodology of spanning the space of hedge fund risk factors with all available exchange traded funds (ETFs). We demonstrate the efficacy of the methodology with out‐of‐sample individual hedge fund return replication by ETF clone portfolios. This is consistent with our interpretation of ETF returns as proxies to risk factors driving hedge fund returns. We further consider portfolios of “cloneable” and “noncloneable” hedge funds, defined as top and bottom in‐sample R2 matches, and demonstrate that our ETF clone portfolios slightly outperform cloneable hedge funds out of sample.
We reconsider whether hedge funds’ time-varying risk factor exposures are predictive of superior performance. We construct an overall measure (BA) of fund managers and present evidence that top beta active managers deliver superior long-term out-of-sample performance compared to top alpha active managers. BA captures the time-varying nature of beta exposures and can be interpreted as a common factor of both systematic risk (SR) and (1 - R2) measures. BA also compares favorably to extant measures of market timing, capturing the explanatory power of such measures of hedge fund performance.
We explore the extent to which hedge funds incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) considerations in the development of their investment strategies. Using an asset‐weighted composite measure of CSR by fund, we examine the difference in financial performance between hedge funds with high CSR investment relative to those with low CSR investment and document no significant difference. Yet, we find that hedge funds increase their exposure to high‐CSR investments over our sample period, specifically postfinancial crisis. We find that the increases in CSR investment are associated with lower return volatilities in the future. Additionally, hedge funds with higher weighted CSR scores exhibit significantly lower risk factor loadings than funds with lower weighted CSR scores. Our results suggest that hedge funds are able to derive benefits by using CSR considerations as a form of risk mitigation in their investment policies.
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