Portfolio manager home-country culture and mutual fund risk-taking

Abstract

I find that home-country culture affects portfolio managers’ investment risk-taking and performance. I focus on security value, which measures the degree to which people in a country assign importance to security, safety, and stability. Funds managed by managers from countries with higher security value exhibit lower fund return volatility, trade less frequently, and follow benchmarks more closely. These funds also tend to avoid lottery-type stocks and hence perform significantly better. However, the impact of home-country security value decays as managers spend more time away from their home countries.