THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE
VOL. LVIII, NO. 1
FEB.

2003

Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational

Prolonged Mispricing

EITAN GOLDMAN and STEVE L. SLEZAK n

ABSTRACT
This paper examines how information becomes reflected in prices when in-
vestment decisions are delegated to fund managers whose tenure may be
shorter than the time it takes for their private information to become public.
We consider a sequence of managers, where each subsequent manager inherits
the portfolio of their predecessor.We show that the inherited portfolio distorts
the subsequent manager’s incentive to trade on long-term information. This
allows erroneous past information to persist, causing mispricing similar to a
bubble.We investigate the magnitude of the mispricing. In addition, we exam-
ine endogenous information quality. In some cases, information quality in-
creases when the manager’s expected tenure decreases.

MORE THAN EVER BEFORE, investors delegate the management of their investment
portfolios to professional fund managers.1 Due to mobility and turnover, the ex-
pected tenure of a manager may be shorter than the investment horizon of a typi-
cal investor.2 Given this horizon mismatch, fund managers may have less
incentive to collect and trade on long-term information than do the investors they
trade for. As a result, the prices in markets with more delegated investment will
reflect less long-term information than those markets where long-lived investors
manage their own portfolios. The amount of long-term information that is re-
flected in prices is likely also to change with market conditions. As a manager’s

n
Goldman is from the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Cha-
pel Hill and Slezak is from the College of Business Administration, University of Cincinnati.
We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Douglas Breeden, Jennifer Conrad, Rick
Green (the editor), Harold Zhang, the anonymous referee, and the seminar participants at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We are solely responsible for any errors that
might persist.
1
Allen and Gorton (1993) cite statistics that indicate that institutional ownership has in-
creased from 6.5 percent in 1965 to 45 percent in 1991. Since then, the percentage of institu-
tional ownership has increased further. The Conference Board provides information on
institutional ownership which shows that the percentage of institutional ownership peaked
at 59.9 percent by the end of 1997, falling only slightly to 57.6 percent by the third quarter of
1999 (see The Conference Board news release by Carolyn Kay Brancato at http://www.news-
wise.com/articles/2000/4/INVEST.TCB.html).
2
Chevalier and Ellison (1999) report that, in a sample of growth and growth and income
funds, 18 percent of the funds changed managers from 1993 to 1994. Thus, in their sample,
approximately one-fifth of the managers had tenures less than two years, far shorter than
the investment life of a typical investor.

283
284 The Journal of Finance

expected tenure decreases due to increased mobility, or as the time it takes for
information to become public increases due to greater uncertainty, the incentive
to collect long-term information and hence the informational efficiency of stock
prices may decline.
We formalize the above argument by considering a model in which the probabil-
ity that the manager’s private information will become public during her tenure
may be less than one.We refer to this probability as the revelation probability.We
examine a sequence of managers where each new manager inherits the portfolio
of the preceding manager.We assume that managers are compensated according
to the change in the value of the portfolio they manage during their tenure. The
model confirms that the incentive to trade on long-term information is increasing
in the revelation probability. However, the model also provides additional in-
sights. We show that the inherited position can create a lock-in effect whereby
the current manager may not sell on bad news or buy on good news.3 This lock-
in effect can cause erroneous information from the past to have a prolonged effect
on the stock price, even beyond the point in time at which the truth in past infor-
mation is publicly revealed.
The intuition for these results can be obtained by recognizing that the change
in the value of the fund during the manager’s tenure is the trading profits plus the
change in the value of the inherited position. If the current manager inherits a
long position in a security for which she receives negative information, then she
faces a trade-off in determining how best to trade. On the one hand, selling is the
best policy if her private information will be revealed during her tenure. This is
true because selling maximizes trade profits and has no adverse effect on the
value of her inherited position. The latter fact holds because the portfolio’s end-
of-tenure value fully reflects her information regardless of her trades. On the
other hand, selling will have a negative effect on the value of the fund if her pri-
vate information will not be revealed during her tenure. In this case, selling has a
neutral effect on her trade profits because the price she sells at prevails until the
end of her tenure. However, selling lowers the end-of-tenure price and causes the
value of the inherited position to decline. In summary, if her information is re-
vealed, selling increases trade profits and has a neutral effect on the inherited
portfolio, but when her information is not revealed, selling has a neutral effect
on her trade profits and a negative effect on the inherited portfolio. If it is suffi-
ciently likely that her information will not be revealed, then the negative effect on
the value of the inherited portfolio will dominate the potential trade profits. As a
result, she will not sell on her negative information and the stock price will con-
tinue to reflect the positive information that prevailed when the prior long posi-
tion was established. If this past information contains errors, then the stock
price will persistently reflect these errors in a manner similar to a speculative
bubble.

3
This effect is similar to the lock-in effect associated with capital gains taxation, where
owners of appreciated securities who possess negative information fail to sell in order to
avoid taxes (see Constantinides (1983, 1984)).
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 285

In the paper, we provide cross-sectional implications for stocks that differ in

the degree of institutional ownership.We show that firms with high initial insti-
tutional ownership are, on average, firms with overly optimistic initial signals.
These firms are the ones that are more likely to be persistently overvalued. We
also show that there will be more mispricing in stocks with a single institutional
investor relative to those with multiple institutional investors.This is consistent
with the literature on analyst following and market efficiency (Easley et al.
(1996)). Finally, we show that the degree of mispricing is increasing in the quality
of the signals that prior managers receive. As the quality of the signal obtained
by the prior manager increases, the previous manager takes a more extreme posi-
tion in the stock. The more extreme is the prior position, the larger is its impact
on the trades of the current manager and the larger the mispricing. This effect
implies that the degree of mispricing will become more pronounced as institu-
tions collect higher quality information or as the time it takes for uncertainty
to be resolved and publicly revealed increases.
We also show that the inherited position and the revelation probability to-
gether affect the current manager’s incentive to collect higher quality informa-
tion. We identify two such effects. First, for a given signal-to-noise ratio, as the
revelation probability falls, the likelihood of realizing a positive trading profit
declines, thus reducing the incentive to trade and collect information. Second,
as the revelation probability falls, the inherited position has a greater impact
on the current manager’s trade.We show that this implies that current net order
flow contains more noise. This allows the current manager to hide her private
information better, increasing the incentive to collect information. Taking both
effects together, we show that a decline in the revelation probability can actually
lead to an improvement in private information quality and price informativeness.
Finally, we identify several implications of the model that are consistent with a
variety of recently documented empirical regularities. First, the model generates
behavior that is consistent with the glamour-versus-value anomaly (Lakonishok,
Shleifer, and Vishny (1994)) in which low-P/E stocks outperform high-P/E stocks.
Second, the model generates phenomena similar to speculative bubbles and the
recent run-up and decline of Internet stocks. Third, managers in the model en-
gage in positive-feedback trading as in De Long et al. (1990a) and Grinblatt, Tit-
man, and Wermers (1995). In contrast to the behavioral interpretations, in our
model positive-feedback trading is a rational consequence of delegated portfolio
management. Fourth, the model provides insight into the relationship between
past performance and subsequent risk taking recently documented in the empiri-
cal tournament literature (see Brown, Harlow, and Starks (1996), Chevalier and
Ellison (1997), Coval and Shumway (2000), and Busse (2001)).
Our paper contributes to the theoretical literature that examines when stock
prices solely reflect information about fundamental value. Our model belongs to
the branch of the literature that considers only rational agents.4 This branch

4
A recent segment of the literature includes models with irrational agents (see, e.g.,
De Long et al. (1990a, 1990b), Barberis, Shleifer, and Vishny (1998), Daniel, Hirshleifer, and
Subrahmanyam (1998), Odean (1998), and Hong and Stein (1999)).
286 The Journal of Finance

includes papers on speculative bubbles that establish that bubbles do not exist
under common knowledge and/or symmetric information (see Tirole (1982)) ex-
cept when a bubble completes the market (as in Samuelson (1958), Diamond
(1965), Gale (1973), Bewley (1980), and Santos and Woodford (1997)) or when its
growth is bounded by the growth of the real economy (as in Tirole (1985)).
Bubbles, however, can exist when common knowledge fails (see Brunnermeier
(2001) for a detailed survey) or when asymmetric information or moral
hazard exists (see Allen and Gorton (1993), Allen, Morris, and Postlewaite
(1993), and Dow and Gorton (1994)). Our paper belongs to this latter
group.
Our paper is most closely related to Dow and Gorton (1994). In their model, the
agents have investment horizons that are shorter than the time it takes for their
information to become public.While both Dow and Gorton’s and our paper exam-
ine the pricing impact of agency and time-horizon, our paper differs in the direc-
tion of the informational externality. In Dow and Gorton, the possibility that
future speculators will not have a sufficient incentive to trade on information
leads current speculators not to trade on long-term, value-relevant information.
Thus, future speculators generate an informational externality on current
speculators. In contrast, in our model, the previous portfolio position creates
an informational externality that distorts the current manager’s incentive to
trade.
Our paper is also related to the literature on trade-based price manipulation
(see, e.g., Allen and Gale (1992), Jarrow (1992), Kumar and Seppi (1992), and
Fishman and Hagerty (1995)). Profitable trade-based manipulation is possible
when an agent can, by trading, cause a price change that does not fully reverse
when he unwinds his position. This is possible when the relationship between
trade size and price impact is asymmetric around zero.The above papers provide
structural models in which this type of asymmetry occurs in equilibrium. In our
model, the fund manager also manipulates the stock price. However, unlike in
the manipulation literature, the agent in our model does not unwind her position
in order to profit. Rather, she receives compensation based on the interim ma-
nipulated price, passing her position (and the consequences associated with un-
winding it) on to the next manager. Thus, as in the manipulation literature, our
manager instigates a price impact without having to bear the full cost of its re-
versal.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section I, we describe the model.
In Section II, we solve for, analyze, and provide intuition on the equilibrium
when private information quality is exogenous. In Section III, we examine
the resulting properties of the equilibrium price process under fixed information
quality. In Section IV, we endogenize information quality and examine the
impact of the revelation probability and the fund’s prior position on the in-
centive for current managers to collect information. In Section V, we discuss
the robustness of our results when there are multiple informed fund
managers competing in the same security. In Section VI, we relate the behavior
generated by the model to existing empirical regularities. Section VII
concludes.
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 287

I. The Model
There are three types of risk-neutral agents: (1) fund managers, (2) liquidity
traders, and (3) a competitive market maker. Over multiple discrete dates, the
agents trade two securities: a risk-free bond and a risky stock.The following sec-
tions discuss each element of the model in detail.

A. Managers
A.1. Timing
We consider a succession of managers, with each manager staying with the
fund for one unit of time. At t 5 0, the fund is formed with an initial endowment
of cash and zero shares of the risky asset. At the same time, an initial manager,
A0, is installed. This manager collects/receives private information about the fu-
ture value of the risky security and, based on this information, trades to create
the fund’s initial position in the risky asset, X0I . Following that trade (i.e., at
t 5 01), the manager leaves the fund. Immediately following this point at t 5 1 a
new fund manager, A1, is installed. This new manager collects her own private
information regarding the future value of the risky security and decides how best
to trade. As with the first manager, this manager also leaves the firm after her
trades clear (i.e., at t 5 11).

A.2. Information about FutureValue

We assume that the value of the risky security at some future date beyond
t 5 11 is V ¼ V
þ Z þ Z , where V
is a constant and Z0 and Z1 are independent
0 1
mean zero normal random variables with variances s2Z0 and s2Z1 , respectively. The
variables V
, s2 , and s2 are common knowledge. The first manager, A0, receives
Z0 Z1
information about Z0, while the second manager, A1, receives information about
Z1. ManagerA0 receives a noisy signal y0 5 Z01e0, where e0  Nð0; s2e0 Þ is indepen-
dent of Z0, while manager A1 receives the noisy signal y1 5 Z11e1, where e1 
Nð0; s2e1 Þ is independent of Z0, Z1, and e0.
We make the following assumption regarding the resolution of uncertainty
about Z0.

ASSUMPTION 1: At t 5 01 (i.e., after the first manager trades and before the new man-
ager arrives) Z0 becomes public knowledge. However, neither y0 nor e0 are ever revealed.

This assumption is made for two reasons. First, it specifies that past information
about the true value of the firm is revealed over time while the specific noisy in-
formation possessed by the manager is not. Second, this assumption allows us to
focus on the incentives of the second manager in the most innocuous situation in
which the inherited portfolio does not start out mispriced. If Z0 is publicly re-
vealed at t 5 01, by the time A1 is installed, the market price of the risky asset is
V
þ Z , which is the expected per-share terminal value given all available infor-
0
mation at that time. Thus, when A1 joins the fund, she inherits a portfolio that is
288 The Journal of Finance

appropriately valued. As a consequence, the results we obtain on prolonged mis-

pricing do not stem from initial mispricing.
To capture the feature that a manager’s tenure may be shorter than the
time it takes for information to become public, we assume that there is some
probability that the truth in the second manager’s information will not become
public before she leaves the fund at t 5 11. In particular, we adopt the following
assumption.

ASSUMPTION 2: The stock price at t 5 11 is given by

V with probability d
P1þ ¼ ;
P1 with probability 1  d

where P1 is the market price that results given the realized net order flow at t 5 1.

Thus, with probability d, the true value of the security is revealed while, with
probability 1  d, the price at t 5 11 reflects only the information already con-
tained in P1.
Companies that rely heavily on research and development (e.g., Internet-re-
lated stocks or pharmaceuticals and biotechnology) are low d stocks. Stocks in
fairly stable industries for which the future business environment is
fairly predictable and whose assets are more tangible are high d stocks. Although
d is a characteristic of a security, d can also be a feature of the fund manager
and/or of prevailing general economic conditions. For example, d declines as a
fund manager ages and moves closer to retirement. It also decreases during
periods of exuberant economic activity characterized by increased managerial
turnover.
Assumptions 1 and 2 create an asymmetry between the first and second man-
ager in that the truth in the first manager’s information is always revealed prior
to her departure while the second manager’s information is only revealed with
some probability. Rather than consider a history of many prior managers, we
use a single ‘‘first’’ manager to represent all prior managers. Given this interpre-
tation, it is reasonable to assume that some of the truth in the old information
possessed by a long-since departed manager will have been revealed by the time
a new manager is installed. If, under these assumptions, we can show that pro-
longed mispricing obtains, then it will also obtain for a longer sequence of man-
agers who each face do1.

A.3. Incentive Compensation

Managers have an incentive to collect and appropriately trade on information
due to performance-based compensation. We make the following assumption re-
garding the manager’s objective.

ASSUMPTION 3: Each manager trades to maximize the expected difference between

the value of the fund’s portfolio immediately before her first trade (but after the prior
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 289

manager’s last trade) and the value of her portfolio when she leaves (prior to the next
manager’s trading).

This assumption has two important features. First, the manager’s performance
is measured by the change in the value of the fund (or, equivalently, the fund’s
return) only over the interval in which she manages the fund.5 Second, the man-
ager’s objective function is linear in performance. This assumption is consistent
with the manager receiving all or part of any performance-based fee received by
the fund (as distinct from the manager), where the performance fee satisfies the
restrictions imposed by the Investment Advisor Act of 1940 and its amendments.
This act specifies that a mutual fund can assess its investors a ‘‘fulcrum’’-type
performance fee. Fulcrum fees are those that are linear and symmetric about a
prespecified benchmark. Our assumed objective function corresponds to a ful-
crum fee with a nonstochastic benchmark. Because our managers are risk neu-
tral, this objective function is also consistent with performance measured
relative to a stochastic benchmark (e.g., the return on the S&P 500) if the man-
ager’s trade has a negligible impact on that benchmark.
Some papers suggest that even though fees are restricted to be linear, a fund’s
net income may be nonlinear in performance. Chevalier and Ellison (1997) show
that fund size is typically nonlinear in the fund’s past performance. Thus, if the
net income of the fund increases with fund size (e.g., due to increasing returns to
scale), the objective of the fund and its manager may be nonlinear in perfor-
mance. This is important because nonlinear contracts may introduce secondary
motives for trade, such as variance manipulation. Here we focus on the first-order
effect of manipulation of the first moment. Nonlinear contracts may potentially
impact the magnitude of the pricing bias we identify, but not its existence.

B. Liquidity Traders and Market Makers

Liquidity traders are assumed to be nonstrategic where the liquidity demand
at date t is a random variable: XtL  Nð0; s2Lt Þ. As in Kyle (1985), the orders of the
manager and the liquidity traders are combined, with the market maker obser-
ving only the aggregate net order flow, wt 5 XIt 1XLt .The market maker then satis-
fies the individual orders at the prespecified net-order-flow-contingent price.
Since we assume that the market maker is competitive, the price function is sim-
ply the expectation of the future value of the asset given the net order flow and all
other relevant information available to the market maker. Here we consider line-
ar price functions of the following form:
Pt ¼ EðVjOt Þ þ lt ðwt  Eðwt jOt ÞÞ; ð1Þ

5
An alternative contract could specify that her compensation be based on the change in the
portfolio value between when she arrives and after the truth in her information (Z0) is fully
revealed. While this type of contract will eliminate prolonged mispricing, this type of contract
is never observed in practice since it exposes the current manager to risks not under her con-
trol, namely the trades of predecessors. In addition, this type of contract is not feasible since
the date at which the truth in the manager’s information is fully revealed is not observable
and therefore not contractible.
290 The Journal of Finance

where lt is the inverse of the market depth and Ot is public information at t ex-
cluding wt.
We further assume that the market maker does not observe the initial position
of the fund or the information used to choose it. However, the market maker has
rational expectations about the distribution of the initial position. As will be
shown in Section II.B below, if the market maker knows the initial position, then
he will be able to ‘‘undo’’any trade biases it creates.
Figure 1 provides a summary timeline for all of the events in the model.

II. Equilibrium
In this section, we solve for the equilibrium of the multiperiod trade game.
Since each manager maximizes only the change in the value of the portfolio dur-
ing her tenure, the first manager’s problem can be solved separately from the sec-
ond manager’s problem. However, the second manager must take as given the
trade of the first manager. Thus, we solve the first-period problem first and then
use the result to solve the second-period problem.

A. Equilibrium in the First Period

The initial manager chooses an order X0I to solve the following optimization
problem:

þ Z  P0 Þjy0
;
max E½X0I ðV ð2Þ
0
X0I

Figure 1. Sequence of events. This figure shows the sequence of events in the model. The
first manager is denoted by A0 and the second manager is denoted by A1. The trades of a
fund manager at time t are denoted XtI . The trades of the liquidity traders at time t are
denoted XtL . The net order flow at time t is denoted wt and is equal to the sum of the man-
ager’s trade and the liquidity trades at time t (i.e., wt ¼ XtI þ XtL).The terminal value of the
asset is V ¼ V
þ Z þ Z .The first fund manager receives a signal y0 5 Z0+e0 while the sec-
0 1
ond fund manager receives a signal y1 5 Z1+e1.The price of the asset at time t is denoted Pt.
Finally, EðjÞ denotes a conditional expectation and d is the revelation probability.
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 291

subject to

þ l0 ðw0  Eðw0 jO0 ÞÞ;
P0 ¼ V
w0 ¼ X0I þ X0L :

Here the objective function for A0 is simply the expected value of her portfolio,
net of its initial cost. The constraints reflect her rational expectations about the
expected effect her trade will have on the transaction price. Because the fund
initially holds zero shares of the risky asset and Z0 is publicly announced right
before A0 leaves the fund, this problem is essentially the same as in a static Kyle
(1985) model. The manager’s optimal demand is
1
X0I ¼ g y0 ; ð3Þ
2l0 0
where g0 ¼ s2Z0 =s2y0 and s2y0 ¼ s2Z0 þ s2e0 . Knowing the form of this demand, the mar-
ket maker sets market depth l0 such that

þ l0 ðw0  Eðw0 jO0 ÞÞ:
P0 ¼ E½Vjw0 ¼ X0I þ X0L
¼ V ð4Þ

Theorem 1 specifies the equilibrium l0.

THEOREM 1: In the rational expectation equilibrium of the first period, the equilibrium
price function parameter is
2
1 sZ0
l0 ¼ : ð5Þ
2 sL0 sy0

Proof: The proof is a straightforward extension of Kyle (1985) and is, therefore,
omitted.

B. Equilibrium in the Second Period

We begin by analyzing the optimization problem of the second fund manager,
A1. Based on her signal, y1, and the portfolio she inherits, X0I , she chooses her
trade, X1I , so as to maximize the expected change in the value of her portfolio
from the time she was hired to the time she leaves. Because Z0 is revealed prior

þ Z Þ.
to her joining the fund, the value of the portfolio she inherits is W1 ¼ X0I ðV 0
I 1
Given the trade X1 and the realized prices at t 5 1 and t 5 1 , the value of her
portfolio at t 5 11 when she leaves is simply W1þ ¼ X0I P1þ þ X1I ðP1  P1 Þ. Hence,
the realized change in the value of her portfolio is

þ Z Þ
þ X I ðP1þ  P1 Þ:
DW ¼ W1þ  W1 ¼ X0I ½P1þ  ðV ð6Þ
0 1

þ Z þ l1 ðw1 
As shown in the Appendix, substituting the price function P1 ¼ V 0
E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
Þ into equation (6) and taking expectations shows that the
292 The Journal of Finance

manager’s objective depends on her trade X1I and her inherited position X0I as
follows:
 
EðDWjX1I ; y1 ; X0I ; Z0 Þ ¼X0I dg1 y1 þ ð1  dÞl1 ½X1I  Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ

  ð7Þ
þ X1I d g1 y1 þ l1 ½X1I  Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
;
where g1 ¼ s2Z1 =s2y1 .
Equations (6) and (7) decompose the change in the portfolio value into two
parts: The first term on the right-hand side is the change in the value of her
inherited position, and the second term on the right-hand side is her trade
profit. There exists a trade that maximizes the trading profits as in Kyle (1985).
However, this trade may adversely affect the value of the inherited position. For
example, if the current manager has negative information and has inherited a
positive position, the trade that maximizes her trade profit will lower the value
of her inherited position. In the absence of an inherited position, the manager
would sell. However, in the event that her private information does not
become public (thus P1þ ¼ P1 ), her selling will lower the end-of-tenure price
P1þ , leading to a decrease in the value of her inherited long position. Thus, the
optimal trade that maximizes the sum of the two components will be less negative
than if she had inherited a zero position. Unless the information is sufficiently
negative, she may not sell since the trade profits from selling may be too small
relative to the loss in the value of the inherited position. On the other hand,
if she inherits a short position, then a lower end-of-tenure price will improve
the value of the inherited position and her optimal demand will be even more
negative.
The first-order condition with respect to X1I implies that the manager’s optimal
trade is
g1 1  d I E½w1 jZ0 ; w0

X1I ¼ y1 þ X0 þ :
2l1 2d 2
Given this trade function,
1d
E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
¼ E½X0I jZ0 ; w0
:
d
and the optimal trade function becomes
g1 ð1  dÞ  I 
X1I ¼ y1 þ X0 þ EðX0I jZ0 ; w0 Þ : ð8Þ
2l1 2d
Since the market maker extracts E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
from w1 when setting the stock
price, the inherited position impacts the price only to the extent that it differs
from its expectation given public information, E½X0I jZ0 ; w0
.That is, the manager’s
trade impacts the unexpected net order flow by X1I  Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ ¼ X1I 
1d I g1 ð1dÞ I I
d E½X0 jZ0 ; w0
¼ 2l1 y1 þ 2d D0 , where D0  X0  E½X0 jw0 ; Z0
is the ‘‘initial-po-
sition deviation,’’defined as the deviation of the actual inherited position from its
conditional expectation. The net demand then consists of two parts: The first
part reflects relevant private information, and the second part contains noise
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 293

from the inherited position D0.6 In addition, if the initial position X0I exceeds its
expectation, then D0 is positive and the signal has to be sufficiently negative in
order for the manager’s trade to lower the price on average. If it is not sufficiently
negative, the manager will forgo trade profits and buy in order to increase the
value of her inherited position. Thus, the inherited position creates a lock-in ef-
fect whereby negative information possessed by the manager does not get ex-
pressed to the market via selling. A similar argument implies that positive
information will not get expressed if the manager inherits a short position.
The equilibrium price function under competitive market making is simply the
conditional expectation of the terminal value given the information content of
the realized unexpected net order flow, w1  E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
. Specifically, we have
the following theorem.

THEOREM 2: The equilibrium price function at t 5 1 is

þ Z þ l1 ½w1  Eðw1 jw0 ; Z Þ
;
P1 ¼ V ð9Þ
0 0

where l1 is as follows:
2
1 sZ1 1
l1 ¼ ; ð10Þ
2 sy1 ½s2L þ ð1dÞ2 Varðe0 jZ0 ; o0 Þ
0:5
1 2d

with Varðe0 jZ0 ; o0 Þ ¼ ðs2L0 s2e0 Þ=ðs2y0 þ s2e0 Þ.

Proof: See the Appendix.

The features of the equilibrium are discussed in detail in the next section.

III. Price Properties and Mispricing

A. The Effect of the Inherited Position and Prolonged Mispricing
To highlight the dependence of the current price on the inherited position, the
equilibrium t 5 1 price function can be written as follows:
s2Z1 1d

þ Z þ 0:5
P1 ¼ V y1 þ l1 X1L þ l1 D0 : ð11Þ
0
s2y1 2d

As in a standard Kyle-type model, half of the pertinent information possessed by

the informed agent (i.e., ðs2Z1 =s2y1 Þy1) is reflected in the price while the current
liquidity shock X1L creates noise. In addition to these standard components,
6
If the initial position is observable by the market, then there is no noise and D0 5 0. How-
ever, an alternative formulation is obtained if the inherited position is observable but d is
random. In this case, from the perspective of the market maker, the optimal demand of the
current manager remains a function of two unknown variables (now y1 and d rather than y1
and X1I ). If the market maker knows the inherited position but not d, then the second term in
the net demand remains unknown and the qualitative results obtained herein will be sus-
tained.
294 The Journal of Finance

the inherited position creates a bias in the price. For a given initial-position
deviation D0, the expected difference between the terminal value,V, and the cur-
rent price, P1, is simply
1d
EðV  P1 jD0 Þ ¼ l1 D0 : ð12Þ
2d
Thus, the price of a security that is held by a manager who inherits a larger-than-
expected position (i.e., one for which D040) will be biased upward on average.
Similarly, when the current manager holds a smaller-than-expected position,
the security will be undervalued on average.
Substituting the closed-form expression for the initial-position deviation into
the price function allows us to rewrite equation (11) as a function of the noise in
A0’s signal, e0:
" #
s2Z1 1  d s2y0 sy s2e0
P1 ¼ V
þ Z þ 0:5 L
y1 þ l1 X 1 þ l1 2 e0  0 L
X : ð13Þ
0
s2y1 2d sy0 þ s2e0 sL0 s2y0 þ s2e0 0

This expression reveals that the signal error of the previous manager, e0, has a
long-term impact on the stock price even after Z0 is revealed. Hereafter we refer
to this feature as prolonged mispricing. Prolonged mispricing occurs because X1I
depends upon the inherited position, which, in turn, depends upon the previous
manager’s noisy signal.
There are four situations in which there is no prolonged mispricing. First,
when there is no noise in the prior manager’s signal (i.e., s2e0 ¼ 0 and e0 5 0) the
market maker can use Z0 to perfectly infer the inherited position. In that case,
D0 ¼ X0I  E½X0I jw0 ; Z0
¼ 0 for all realizations of Z0 and w0 and no bias is caused
by the inherited position.7 Second, when there is no liquidity noise in the first
period, the past net order flow perfectly reveals the inherited position and D0 ¼
X0I  E½X0I jw0 ; Z0
¼ 0 for all realizations of the prior signal and net order flow.
Third, when the revelation probability d is one, the inherited position has no
impact on the current manager’s trade. As a result, the current net order flow is
unaffected by the past signal error.The fourth case is trivial and occurs when the
realized value of D0 5 0.
Because D0 is mean zero, equation (12) implies that the unconditional expected
deviation between price and terminal value is zero.This does not imply that there
is no bias for each individual security, however. Rather, it implies that in a cross
section of securities, the pool will not be biased on average. That is, the uncondi-
tional expected bias corresponds to the mean of the deviations that occur in a
7
Mutual funds are required to periodically disclose portfolio holdings. If these disclosure
times coincide with management turnover, then there will be no prolonged mispricing or bias.
However, if position disclosures do not coincide with management turnover, then the position
inherited by the current manager will not be perfectly predictable, and the market will not
know what portion of the manager’s current trade is based on new information. In addition,
even if the starting position is disclosed when there is manager turnover, as long as there is
some other parameter uncertainty (perhaps about d), the market will not be able to fully infer
the extent of the trade bias (see footnote 6).
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 295

cross section of securities, with each security traded by a different manager who
inherits a different initial position. Thus, on average, securities are priced with-
out bias, but only because there are as many overpriced securities as underpriced
securities. The existence of a bias for an individual security is analogous to the
standard omitted variable bias in econometrics.8
The following three propositions characterize how the degree of the bias for a
single security depends upon the parameters of the model.

PROPOSITION 1: For do1, s2e0 40, and a given initial-position deviation D0, the average
absolute deviation of price from terminal value is

a. increasing in s2Z1 ,
b. decreasing in s2L1 , and
c. decreasing in s2e1 .

Proof: It is easy to verify the above by inspecting

@ 2 EðjV  P1 jjD0 Þ
;
@s2Z1 @D0

@ 2 EðjV  P1 jjD0 Þ
;
@s2L1 @D0

and

@ 2 EðjV  P1 jjD0 Þ
;
@s2e1 @D0

respectively.

The above results derive solely from the manner in which each of these variables
affects market depth. For consequence (a), the manager trades relatively more
aggressively on the basis of her signal and relatively less aggressively on the basis
of her initial position as the variance of the news increases. Hence, the informa-
tion content of the unexpected net order flow increases, causing market depth to
increase. As market depth increases, the initial position deviation D1 has a larger
impact on the realized price. Consequence (b) derives from the following argu-
ment. The larger the liquidity variance, the greater is the noise in the net order
flow, and hence the lower is l1. As with consequence (a), a lower l1 implies
8
To integrate over all possible values of X0I and claim there is no bias is similar to conclud-
ing that there is no omitted variable bias just because the correlation between the omitted,
included, and dependent variables is unknown. Even if the correlation is unknown, as long as
it is nonzero, we know that the estimated coefficient is not correct on average. Similarly, there
is a bias in our model as long as the initial position is nonzero.
296 The Journal of Finance

that d has a smaller impact on the price. A similar argument justifies conse-
quence (c).

PROPOSITION 2: The impact of the past noise shock, e0, on the deviation of current price
from fundamental value is decreasing in the revelation probability, d. That is,

@ 2 jV  P1 j
o0:
@d@e0

Proof: This is easily verified given the derivative of the price function in equa-
tion (13) and the reduced-form expression for the equilibrium l1 in equation (10).

As d rises, the probability that the current manager’s information will be publicly
revealed during her tenure increases. The current manager trades less aggres-
sively based on her inherited position ((1  d)/2d goes down), thus trading rela-
tively more aggressively based on her current signal. This has two effects. First,
the current net order flow depends less on the inherited position and, as a result,
less on the prior manager’s signal error. This results in the signal error having a
smaller impact on the current price.The second effect, however, is in the opposite
direction. Because the current manager trades more aggressively based on her
current signal, her trades become more informative and the market becomes less
deep (i.e., l1 increases). As a result, the component of the manager’s trade that
depends on the inherited position has a greater impact on the price. The above
proposition indicates that the first effect dominates the second effect, implying
that the bias is decreasing in d.

PROPOSITION 3: The impact of past noise shock, e0, on the deviation of current price
from fundamental value is increasing in the quality of A0’s signal (i.e., 1=s2e0 ).That is,

@ 2 jV  P1 j
o0:
@s2e0 @e0

Proof: This can be easily verified given the derivative of the price function
in equation (13) and the reduced-form expression for the equilibrium l1 in
equation (10).

This result seems counterintuitive initially; higher quality information implies a

more biased price. The intuition for this result, however, can be obtained by rea-
lizing that the lower the variance of past noise, the more reliable is A0’s informa-
tion. Thus, she takes a more extreme position on the basis of that information.
The more extreme the position passed on to A1, the more A1’s trade is based on
this position and the less it is based on new information. As a consequence, the
initial position has a greater impact on the current stock price than the current
information, resulting in a greater deviation between price and fundamental
value.
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 297

The above result implies that, conditional on a particular error, a firm in an

industry with high-quality information will have a greater bias than a firm in
an industry where information is less reliable. However, because extreme errors
are less likely to occur with higher quality signals, it is a priori unclear how the
degree of mispricing depends upon the quality of the prior signal. In the next
section, we integrate over all possible errors and ascertain the efficiency of
prices as measured by the conditional variance of the terminal value conditional
on the market price of the stock.

B. Informational Efficiency
The following lemma specifies the variance of the terminal value conditional
on the market price (i.e., VarðVjP1 Þ).

LEMMA 1: For all d and X0I , the conditional variance is a constant:

" #
s2Z1 s2e1
VarðVjP1 Þ ¼ 1þ 2 : ð14Þ
2 sy1

Proof: See the Appendix.

Thus, the conditional variance is independent of d and X0I . Furthermore, it is also

independent of the prior signal error variance, s2e0 . This result is similar to the
result in a standard Kyle model that the degree of informational efficiency is in-
dependent of the level of the liquidity-shock variance. As the liquidity-shock var-
iance increases in a standard Kyle model, the aggressiveness with which the
informed agent trades on his information will also increase until the signal-to-
noise ratio in the net order flow returns to the original level, independent of the
level of the liquidity-shock variance. In our model, d falling from one introduces
an extra source of noise, namely that from the initial position. As the total noise
from liquidity shocks and the initial position increases, the fund manager in-
creases the aggressiveness with which she trades on her private information un-
til a fixed portion of it is revealed.
The conditional variance in Lemma 1 has two possible interpretations. One in-
terpretation is that the conditional variance represents the uncertainty the mar-
ket maker faces regarding the terminal value given that the prior signal error is
unobservable. Integrating over all the possible values of signal error results in
VarðVjP1 Þ. This variance considers both the magnitude of the effect of a given
noise shock as well as the probability that that noise shock will be realized. The
second interpretation is that VarðVjP1 Þ represents the variance of the market as
a whole, with the inherited positions varying across the securities in the market.
Given the above interpretations, Lemma 1 indicates that the revelation prob-
ability has no impact on (1) the efficiency of the market as a whole, and (2) the risk
faced by the market maker. However, this result only holds if information quality
298 The Journal of Finance

is exogenously fixed. We consider endogenous information quality in the follow-

ing section.

IV. Endogenous Information Quality

If d and s2e0 affect the equilibrium quality of information collected, then the
term in brackets in equation (14) is not independent of d and s2e0 , and price effi-
ciency varies with these parameters. In this section, we investigate how these
parameters affect the fund manager’s incentive to collect information. We also
examine whether differences in the manner in which uncertainty is resolved have
different effects on price efficiency. In particular, we compare situations in which
longer revelation horizons are manifested by d falling relative to situations in
which longer revelation horizons simply imply greater intrinsic uncertainty
(i.e., s2Z1 increasing).We show that, in contrast to the effect of increasing intrinsic
uncertainty which always reduces price efficiency, price efficiency may increase
as the revelation probability d falls.

A. The Incentive to Collect Information

To model information acquisition, we assume that prior to trading, the man-
ager collects information and incurs a personal cost. The more precise her infor-
mation (i.e., the lower the variance of the error, s2e1), the greater is her personal
cost. Specifically, we assume that the personal cost is c2 =s2e1 , where c is a constant
parameter. Prior to knowing the signal she will receive, the expected value of her
compensation (i.e., the expected value of equation (7)) is as follows:
" #  2
2
  s2Z1
c d c2
E DW  2
¼Hþ   2 ; ð15Þ
se1 4l1 s2Z1 þ s2e1 se1

where H is independent of s2e1 . The first-order condition implies that

cs2Z1
s2e1 ¼  1=2 ; ð16Þ
d
4l1 s2Z1 c

for co(d/4l1)1/2 s2Z1 .9 Equation (16) specifies the optimal information quality col-
lected by the current fund manager as a function of the price function parameter
l1. Recall, however, that the price function parameter l1 is a function of s2e1 . Plug-

ging the above expression for s2e1 into equation (10) yields a single equation in the
unknown l1:

1=2 c 1 s2Z1
l21 þ l1  ¼ 0; ð17Þ
2 Gd1=2 4G
9
For, c  ðd=4l1 Þ1=2 s2Z1 the manager collects no information and s2e1 ¼ 1.
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 299

where
 
1d 2
G  s2L1 þ Varðe0 jZ0 ; o0 Þ:
2d
Let l 1 denote the value of l1 that solves equation (17). The equilibrium informa-
tion quality is the right-hand side of equation (16) evaluated at l 1 .

B. Price Efficiency under Endogenous Information Quality

Because analytical solutions to equation (17) do not exist in general, in Figure 2
we provide numerical solutions to illustrate how equilibrium information quality
and price informativeness depend upon the revelation probability and the noise
in the inherited position. Panel A shows how the equilibrium information quality
varies with d and Varðe0 jZ0 ; o0 Þ and Panel B shows the corresponding values of
the equilibrium market depth parameter l 1. Panel C shows the equilibrium price
efficiency and illustrates two important features. The first important feature is

Panel B
Panel A
Equillibrium Market Depth
Equillibrium Information Quality
0.875

1.90
0.661
lambda 1
size

1.36
0.448
2.00
1.33 0.81 2.00
0.234 0.67 1.33
1.000 cndvare0 0.27
0.767 0.00 0.67 cndvare0
0.533
0.300 1.000
delta 0.767 0.00
0.533 0.300
delta
Panel C
Equillibrium Price Efficiency

0.733

0.687
relconv

0.641 2.00
1.33
0.595 0.67 cndvare0
1.000
0.767 0.00
0.533 0.300
delta

Figure 2.Various aspects of equilibrium under endogenous information quality. Pa-

nel A shows the equilibrium amount of signal noise s2e1 as a function of the revelation
probability d and the conditional variance of the first-period signal error Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ.
Panel B shows how the inverse of the market depth, l1 depends upon d and Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ.
Panel C shows the equilibrium values of VarðVjP1 Þ=s2Z1 , where VarðVjP1 Þ is the uncer-
tainty remaining after observing P1, and s2Z1 is the uncertainty prior to observing P1. For
all of the above solutions c 5 0.1, s2Lt ¼ 0:05, and s2Zt ¼ 1 for t 5 0,1.
300 The Journal of Finance

that, for Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ ¼ 0, as d falls, the informational efficiency of the price
falls (i.e., the conditional variance increases). This is intuitive, since the lower d
is, the less likely it is that the fund manager will profit on her information. As a
result, in equilibrium, she spends less effort collecting information (i.e., she col-
lects signals with a high value for s2e1 ). Since the informativeness of the price is
decreasing in the quality of the fund manager’s information, prices become less
informative as d falls. Thus, if there is no uncertainty regarding the inherited
position ðVarðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ ¼ 0 shorter managerial investment horizons reduce
price efficiency.
The second important feature is that for a fixed level of d, price efficiency
improves as Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ increases. When d is close to one, the improvement is
very slight, while for a low d, the improvement is striking. This happens
because, as Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ increases, the amount of noise in the net order
flow that emanates from the inherited position X0I increases, causing the
market depth parameter l 1 to fall as shown in Figure 2, Panel B. The decline in
l 1 allows the fund manager to trade more aggressively on her information
without affecting the price as much. This increases the return from information,
leading to higher equilibrium information quality and more informative
prices.
This second result implies that price efficiency may actually improve as, ce-
teris paribus, either (1) managerial investment horizons become shorter due to
increased turnover (shorter expected tenure length), or (2) the length of time it
takes for private information to become public increases. Both of these situations
correspond to decreases in d. As Figure 2, Panel C, shows, for sufficiently high
levels of Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ, a decrease in d leads to a decrease in the conditional var-
iance of the terminal value (i.e., an increase in price efficiency). In contrast, if
there is greater intrinsic uncertainty due to increases in s2Z1 , then price efficiency
unambiguously decreases.10 Thus, an increase in uncertainty caused by an in-
crease in the time it takes for private information to become public may have a
different effect on price efficiency than a common increase in intrinsic uncer-
tainty (s2Z1 ) faced by all agents.

V. Empirical Implications
In this section, we show that the model generates behavior that is consistent
with some empirical regularities that have been documented in the literature. In
10
As can be seen by inspection of equation (14), a sufficient condition for
@VarðVjP1 Þ=@s2Z1 40 is that @ðs2e1 =s2Z1 Þ=@s2Z1 o0. By equation (16) @ðs2e1 =s2Z1 Þ=@s2Z1 ¼
 1=2  1=2 hs2 i
c½ 4ld1 s2Z1  c
2 4ld1 Z1 @l1
2l1 @s2  1 . Thus the condition holds if the term in square brackets
Z1
@l1
is negative. Implicitly differentiating equation (17) with respect to s2Z1 implies that @s 2 ¼
Z1
s 2  s 2
1=2 c 1 Z1 @l1 2 1 Z1 1=2 c
½4Gð2l1 þ l 4Gd 1=2 Þ
. Using this result, we have 2l 1 @s 2  1o0 , l1 4 4 4G  l1 2Gd 1=2 .
Z1
s2Z 1=2
Equation (17) also implies l21 ¼ 4G
1
 l1 c
2Gd1=2
. Therefore the right-hand side of the last inequal-
ity equals l21 and the required condition is satisfied.
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 301

particular, the pricing and trade bias we identify above is consistent with the gla-
mour versus value anomaly (see Lakonishok et al. (1994)) and positive feedback
trading among institutions (see Grinblatt et al. (1995)). In addition, the results on
endogenous information quality also generate some implications with respect to
the relationship between past profitability and subsequent risk taking documen-
ted in the empirical mutual fund tournament literature (see Brown et al. (1996),
Chevalier and Ellison (1997), Coval and Shumway (2000), and Busse (2001)).

A. Glamour versusValue
Lakonishok et al. (1994) consider the subsequent returns on securities that de-
viate from their historical average price-to-earnings ratio. Those securities with
a current price-to-earnings ratio higher than their expected ratio are defined as
‘‘glamour’’ stocks, while those that are below their expected ratio are ‘‘value’’
stocks. The glamour versus value anomaly is that low-P/E (i.e, value) stocks out-
perform high-P/E (i.e., glamour) stocks. In the context of our model, we define a
glamour (value) stock as one that has a higher- (lower-) than-expected price rela-
tive to fundamental value, where fundamental value is defined given past public
information. Specifically, we define the fundamental value as P
¼V
þ Z . Given
0
the price function at t 5 1 and this definition of fundamental value, we have

¼ g1 ð1  dÞ
P1  P ðZ þ e1 Þ þ l1 X1L þ l1 D0 : ð18Þ
2 1 2d
A glamour stock is one in which P1  P
40 and a value stock is one in which


P1  P o0. Recall that the long-run price level of the stock will be
PT ¼ V
þZ þZ .
0 1
To address the existence of any differential expected price movements between
glamour and value stocks, we focus on glamour stocks and examine

40
.
E½PT  P1 jP1  P

40
o0.
PROPOSITION 4: For glamour stocks: E½PT  P1 jP1  P

Proof: See the Appendix.

Thus, the expected return on a glamour stock is negative. A glamour stock (i.e.,
one whose realized price is above its expected value) is one where the prior man-
ager had amassed an above-average position based on an overly optimistic signal.
This large position prevents current selling for all but the most extreme negative
signals. Hence, once the truth eventually is revealed (possibly after the current
manager’s tenure), the price sharply declines, generating, on average, a negative
return. A similar argument can be made for value stocks with realized prices
below the mean. In that case, overly pessimistic past signals persist and when


the truth is revealed, the price rises. Furthermore, since @jE½PT P@d
1 jP1 P 40
j
o0,
the greater the revelation probability, the smaller is the extent of a glamour
302 The Journal of Finance

reversion to the mean. Thus, those securities with little long-term information
are less likely to display the glamour-versus-value differential.

B. Positive-Feedback Trading
De Long et al. (1990a) theoretically examine the effect of positive-feedback tra-
ders on prices. Positive-feedback traders are agents who trade based on past per-
formance, typically buying (selling) securities after they have gone up (down).
They show that if such traders exist, then the trades of rational speculators can
cause volatility to increase. Grinblatt et al. (1995) empirically examine the quar-
terly holdings of 155 mutual funds from 1974 to 1984 and document that 77 percent
of those funds displayed positive feedback, with most funds buying past winners.
We measure the extent of positive-feedback trading by the covariance between
the prior price change and the subsequent trade: CovðX1I ; P0  P1 Þ, where
P1 ¼ V
is the price prior to the first manager’s trade. A positive correlation be-
tween past returns and subsequent trades corresponds to momentum or positive-
feedback trading, while a negative value of CovðX1I ; P0  P1 Þ represents contra-
rian trading. Nonzero correlation occurs because the initial position affects both
the realized return in the first period and the trade of the subsequent manager.
For example, if A0 receives a positive signal, she establishes a long initial posi-
tion. In doing so, she (1) bids up the price (i.e., P0  P  1 is positive on average),
and (2) shifts up A1’s trade function (equation (8)).The two effects together result
in the following proposition.

PROPOSITION 5: For all do1,

  
1  d g0 2 2 g
g 2l0
g 2
CovðX1I ; P0  P1 Þ ¼ sZ0 þ 0 s2e0 þ sL0 40; ð19Þ
2d 2l0 2l0 g0

where

b0 s2e0 g0

g  and b0 ¼ :
ðb0 Þ2 s2e0 þ s2L0 2l0

That is, mutual fund managers engage in positive-feedback trading.

Proof: See the Appendix.

Badrinath and Wahal (1999) investigate conditional positive feedback. The

authors divide their sample into two subsamples: (1) securities that are already
present in a fund, and (2) extreme-change securities for which either a prior posi-
tion is completely reversed or a nonexisting position is established for the first
time. They show that funds tend to add securities for the first time following po-
sitive returns (i.e., momentum) but complete liquidations do not tend to occur
after negative returns. Rather, for complete liquidations, there is a negative cor-
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 303

relation between the past return and trade, indicating contrarian behavior. Our
model implies these results as well.

PROPOSITION 6: The following conditional covariances hold:

a. Conditional on a zero prior position (i.e., X0I ¼ 0):

!
1d s2e0
CovðX1I ; P0  P1 jX0I ¼ 0Þ ¼ s2 : ð20Þ
2d s2e0 þ s2y0 L0

b. Conditional on complete liquidation of an existing position (i.e., X1I ¼ X0I):

CovðX1I ; P0  P1 jX1I ¼ X0I Þ ¼ sL0 sy0 : ð21Þ

Proof: See the Appendix.

Badrinath and Wahal (1999) also document that the magnitude of the momentum
effect for a zero prior position is stronger than the contrarian effect for comple-
tely liquidated existing positions. A comparison of equations (20) and (21) shows
that this results holds if

1  d sL0
 2 s2e0 4s2Z0 : ð22Þ
2d sy0
Note that if the revelation probability is one, then this condition is never satis-
fied. However, when do1, this condition can be satisfied as long as the ratio of the
liquidity noise to the signal variance and the signal noise are sufficiently large.
Moreover, the lower the revelation probability, the lower the ratio of liquidity
noise to signal variance must be for the condition to hold.

C. Performance and Subsequent ProfitVariability

Our model also provides insight into recently documented empirical relation-
ships between past performance and subsequent risk taking (see, e.g., Brown
et al. (1996), Chevalier and Ellison (1997), Coval and Shumway (2000), and Busse
(2001)). In the model, the liquidity variance in the first period creates a link be-
tween past performance and future volatility. When liquidity variance is high,
profits in the first period are also high. High liquidity variance in the first period
also makes it more difficult for the market to separate the part of A1’s demand
that is based on current information from the part that is based on her inherited
position. Given A1’s greater ability to hide her information, she collects more pre-
cise information in equilibrium. More precise information implies that she takes
more extreme portfolio positions, which results in a higher variance of trade prof-
its. We are unable to sign the effect on the variance of the value of the existing
304 The Journal of Finance

portfolio. However, if the total return on the portfolio is due mostly to the trade
profits, then the correlation between past performance and current portfolio re-
turn volatility is positive.

VI. Discussion of Robustness

In this section, we focus on the sensitivity of the results to (1) the number of
informed traders, (2) the form of the compensation contract, and (3) the short
horizons of the managers.

A. Multiple Informed Traders

In this section, we examine the extent of the price bias when there are multiple
informed fund managers who trade in a particular security. Specifically, we con-
sider the case in which there are K competing initial fund managers, each receiv-
ing a signal yj0 ¼ Z0 þ ej0 , where j 5 1, 2, y, K and e0j are i.i.d. We further assume
that subsequent fund managers only know their own inherited positions. Thus,
every informed fund manager in the second period must predict the trades of the
other informed managers given their current signal (yj1 ), the truth that is re-
vealed (Z0), and the prior net order flow (w0). The equilibrium with multiple
agents is given in the following lemma.

LEMMA 2: The equilibrium trade of the ith informed manager is

 
g1  
X1i ¼ y1 þ mX0 X0i þ mX0 b0K ½Kð^g  b0K g Þ  ð^g  1Þ
Z0
ðK þ 1Þl1
 
þ mX0 ½b0K g  ^g
w0 ; ð23Þ
ð1dÞ b0K Ks2e b20K ðK1Þs2e
where mX0 ¼ ð2^gÞd, g  b2 2
0
2 , ^g  b2 2
0
2 , and b0K ¼ g0 =ðK þ 1Þl0 .
0K Kse0 þsL0 0K ðK1Þse0 þsL0

The equilibrium price function is

( )
K XK

þZ þ
P1 ¼ V
g ðZ þ e1 Þ þ mX0 b0K l1 ð1  g b0K Þ i L
e0  g X0
0
Kþ1 1 1 j¼1

þ l1 X1L ; ð24Þ
where
1=2
K 1=2 g1 sZ1
l1 ¼  1=2 : ð25Þ
Kþ1
ðmX0 b0K Þ2 ½ð1  b0K g Þ2 Ks2e0 þ ðg Þ2 s2L0
þ s2L1

Proof: Available from the authors upon request.

As in a Kyle model with multiple agents, the fraction K/(K11) of the pertinent
private information is revealed; the market becomes deeper with competition
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 305

among the informed agents. Now, rather than a single prior signal error having
an impact on the price, the sum of the prior signal errors affects the current
price. When there are a finite number of fund managers, the distribution of the
sum of the prior signal errors minus its conditional expectation does not collapse
on zero. Moreover, the market has finite depth (i.e., l140). As a consequence, past
signal errors persist. However, as the number of informed agents increases to in-
finity, the variance of the fourth term in the price function (equation (24)) con-
verges to zero.11 Since the mean of this term is also zero, past errors have no
impact on the current price and no prolonged mispricing exists in the limit as
the number of informed fund managers goes to infinity.

B. Long-lived Managers and the Incentive to Maintain Managerial Continuity

A natural question arises as to how the equilibrium would differ if managers
were long-lived but still faced the possibility that some of their information may
not get publicly revealed until after they leave. A related question is how the equi-
librium might change if funds were managed by longer-lived teams of multiple
agents, whereby management continuity could be maintained even though indi-
vidual team members might come and go. On these questions, we want to make
the following points.
First, even if the first manager is retained as the manager in the second period
and she chooses her first position taking into consideration its effect on her sec-
ond-period trade, a bias will still exist as long as the revelation probability is less
than one.12 Second, if the fund is managed by a team, then the problem becomes
far more complex. Presumably trade decisions will be made jointly by the team,
with each member making a recommendation on the basis of private information
not observed by the other team members. In this case, the expected tenure of an
individual will likely affect the recommendation she makes. To the extent that
the joint decision depends upon the collection of recommendations, then the in-
centives of a single manager will affect even long-lived teams. Third, funds may
have no incentive to adopt policies or organizational forms that would minimize
prolonged mispricing. It is unclear how the fund would sufficiently privately ben-
efit from adopting a rule that promotes a public good like reduced prolonged mis-
pricing. Even if there is a private benefit, to maintain management continuity,
the fund will have to incur some costs. For example, it might have to have preemp-
tive salary increases to reduce turnover that decrease the employer’s surplus for
the fund. Thus, unless management continuity is costless to maintain, the issues
discussed in the previous sections will prevail. Nonetheless, these issues point
out that funds will be interested in managing these costs and benefits. We leave
this analysis for future research.
11
The proof is available from the authors upon request.
12
No closed-form solutions for equilibrium are available when the manager is long-lived.
Thus, we analyze the issues in this paper by considering a model with a sequence of short-
lived managers. However, in an appendix available upon request, we characterize the equili-
brium with a long-lived manager and show that the bias will have a smaller magnitude than
that which exists with a series of short-lived managers.
306 The Journal of Finance

VII. Conclusion
A stock market with delegated portfolio management in which there is
a mismatch between the manager’s investment horizon and the time it takes for
her information to become public can result in the mispricing of securities.
We focus on the interaction of the trade strategies of a sequence of fund
mangers and show that early fund managers impose an informational external-
ity on subsequent fund managers. This causes obsolete or erroneous past infor-
mation to have a prolonged effect on prices. The magnitude of the resulting
pricing bias displays cross-sectional variation that depends on some economic-
ally important variables. Stocks with higher institutional holdings, for
example, are more likely to be mispriced. Stocks about which managers get high
quality information are also likely to have larger mispricings. We demonstrate
how price efficiency is affected by the parameters of the model, notably the
revelation probability and the variance of the size of the initial equity
position. We also show that prices can actually become more efficient as the re-
velation probability falls, which occurs when the manager’s tenure becomes
shorter.

Appendix
Derivation of Optimal Demand at t 5 1: Given the price function, the expected
change in the portfolio’s wealth is given by

E½DWjX1I ; y1 ; X0I


¼ X0I dðV
þ Z þ g y1 Þ þ ð1  dÞðV
þ Z þ l1 ½X I þ EðX L Þ
0 1 0 1 1

 Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
Þ  ðV
þZ Þ
0

I

þ X1 dðV þ Z0 þ g1 y1 Þ þ ð1  dÞ½V
þ Z þ l1 ðX I þ EðX L Þ  Eðw1 jZ ; w0 ÞÞ

0 1 1 0


I L
 ½V þ Z0 þ l1 ðX1 þ EðX1 Þ  Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 ÞÞ

 
¼ X0I dg1 y1 þ ð1  dÞl1 ½X1I  Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ

 
þ X1I d g1 y1 þ l1 ½X1I  Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
: ðA1Þ

The first-order condition for the optimal trade X1I is

@EðDWjX1I ; y1 ; X0I Þ
¼ X0I ð1  dÞl1 þ d½g1 y1  l1 ðX1I  E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
Þ
 X1I dl1 ¼ 0:
@X1I
ðA2Þ

This implies that the optimal trade is

g1 y1 ð1  dÞ I E½w1 jZ0 ; w0

X1I ¼ þ X0 þ ; ðA3Þ
2l1 2d 2
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 307

where X0I ¼ b0 y0 with b0 5 g0/(2l0). Before preceding, we need to calculate

E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
:

E½w1 jZ0 ; w0
¼ E½X1I þ X1L jZ0 ; w0


g1 y1 ð1  dÞ Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
¼E þ b0 ðZ0 þ e0 Þ þ jZ0 ; w0 ðA4Þ
2l1 2d 2
ð1  dÞ Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
¼ b0 ½Z0 þ Eðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
þ
2d 2

Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ ð1  dÞ
) ¼ b0 ½Z0 þ Eðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
ðA5Þ
2 2d

ð1  dÞ ð1  dÞ
) Eðw1 jZ0 ; w0 Þ ¼ b0 ½Z0 þ Eðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ
¼ E½X0I jZ0 ; w0
: ðA6Þ
d d

That is, the expected net order flow from the first period is proportional to the
conditional expectation of the initial position of the informed manager.Thus, the
optimal trade at t 5 1 is


g1 y1 ð1  dÞ X0I þ EðX0I jZ0 ; w0 Þ
X1I ¼ þ : ðA7Þ
2l1 d 2

Proof of Theorem 2: Given the optimal trade function, the price is given by

 

þ Z þ l1 X I þ X L  E½X I þ X L jZ ; w0

P1 ¼ V 0 1 1 1 1 0
 
¼V
þ Z þ l1 fX I  E½X I jZ ; o0
g þ X L
0 1 1 0 1 ðA8Þ

) P1 ¼ V
þ Z þ l1 g1 y1 þ ð1  dÞ ðX I  E½X I jZ ; w0
Þ þ X L ;
0 0 0 0 1
2l1 2d

since

g1 y1 ð1  dÞ I ð1  dÞ
X1I  E½X1I jZ0 ; w0
¼ þ ½X0 þ EðX0I jZ0 ; w0 Þ
 ½2EðX0I jZ0 ; w0 Þ

2l1 2d 2d
g y1 ð1  dÞ I
) X1I  E½X1I jZ0 ; w0
¼ 1 þ ½X0  EðX0I jZ0 ; w0 Þ
:
2l1 2d
ðA9Þ
308 The Journal of Finance

Given the information content of the unexpected net order flow w1  E(w1/Z0, w0),
l1 solves

Covðg1 ðZ2l1 þe
1
1Þ
þ ð1dÞ I I L
2d ðX0  E½X0 jZ0 ; w0
Þ þ X1 ; Z1 Þ
l1 ¼
Varðg1 ðZ2l1 þe
1
1Þ
þ ð1dÞ I I L
2d ðX0  E½X0 jZ0 ; w0
Þ þ X1 Þ
g1
2l1 s2Z1
¼ 2 ; ðA10Þ
g1
2l1 ðs2Z1 þ s2e1 Þ þ s2N

where


ð1  dÞ I
s2N  Var ½X0  EðX0I jZ0 ; w0 Þ
þ X1L
2d
 " #
ð1  dÞ 2 b20 s2e0
¼ s2L0 þ s2L1 : ðA11Þ
2d b20 s2e0 þ s2L0

Solving for l1 and simplifying yields equation (10) in the text. Q.E.D.

Proof of Lemma 1: Because P1 ¼ EðVjw1 ; O1 Þ, then VarðVjP1 Þ ¼ VarðV  P1 Þ

and the price function can be written as

2  

1 sZ1 L 1  d g0
P1 ¼ V þ Z0 þ 2 ðZ1 þ e1 Þ þ l1 X1 þ l1 ½e0  Eðe0 jw0 ; Z0 Þ
: ðA12Þ
2 sy1 2d 2l0

Thus,

   
g g 1  d g0
V  P1 ¼ 1  1 Z1  1 e1  l1 X1L þ ðe0  E ½e0 jw0 ; Z0
Þ ; ðA13Þ
2 2 2d 2l0

and

h g i2 g 2 h i
VarðV  P1 Þ ¼ s2Z1 1  1 þ 1 s2e1 þ l21 s2L1 þ A ; ðA14Þ
2 2

where

 2
    g0 2 2
1d 2 1  d 2 2l0 sL0 se0
A Varðe0 jZ0 ; w0 Þ ¼  2 :
2d 2d g0 2 þ s2
2l0 se0 L0
 Delegated Portfolio Management and Rational Prolonged Mispricing 309

Given that l12 satisfies equation (A10), further simplification of (A14) yields
h g i2 g 2 1 s2Z
VarðV  P1 Þ ¼ s2Z1 1  1 þ 1 s2e1 þ g1 2 1 ðs2 þ AÞ
2 2 4 ðsL1 þ AÞ L1
 h
g2 g2 g g i g2
¼ s2Z1 1  g1 þ 1 þ 1 s2e1 þ 1 s2Z1 ¼ s2Z1 1  g1 þ 1 þ 1 ðs2Z1 þ s2e1 Þ
4 4 4 4 4
" #
h g1 i g1 2 h g1 g1 i h g1 i sZ1
2
s2e1
2 2 2
¼ sZ1 1  g1 þ þ sZ1 ¼ sZ1 1  g1 þ þ ¼ sZ1 1  ¼ 1þ 2 :
4 4 4 4 2 2 sy1

ðA15Þ
Q:E:D
Proof of Proposition 4:
E½PT  P1 jP1  P
40

 
¼E V
þ Z þ Z Þ  ðV
þ Z þ g1 ðZ þ e1 Þ þ l1 X L þ ð1  dÞ l1 D0 jP1  P
40
0 1 0
2 1 1
2d
  
g1 ð1  dÞ
40
¼ E Z1  ðZ1 þ e1 Þ þ l1 X1L þ l1 D0 jP1  P
2 2d



¼ E½Z1  ðP1  P ÞjP1  P 40
¼ E½Z1 jP1  P
40
 E½P1  P
jP1  P

40

 
¼ E E½Z1 jP1  P

jP1  P
40  E½P1  P
jP1  P
40

" g1 2
#
2 sZ1




¼E
Þ ðP1  P ÞjP1  P 40  E½P1  P jP1  P 40

VarðP1  P
g1 2
!
2 sZ1  
¼ E P1  P
jP1  P
40  E½P1  P
jP1  P
40

VarðP1  P Þ

g1 2
!
2 sZ1  
¼ 1 E P1  P
jP1  P
40 :
VarðP1  P Þ
ðA16Þ

Standard results on conditional expectations under normality (see, e.g., Green

(1997, pp. 951^952)) yields

jP1  P
E½P1  P
40
¼ E½P1  P


þ VarðP1  P

Þ½fð0Þ=:5
; ðA17Þ
where f(z) is the p.d.f. of the standard normal distribution. That is,
1 ð0Þ2 1 1
fð0Þ ¼ expð Þ¼ expð0Þ ¼ : ðA18Þ
2p 2 2p 2p


¼ 0, equation (A17) simplifies to
Because E½P1  P

jP1  P
E½P1  P
40
¼ VarðP1  P

Þ=p; ðA19Þ
where
 2

Þ ¼ g1 ðs2 þ s2 Þ þ s2 :
VarðP1  P ðA20Þ
Z1 e1 N
2
310 The Journal of Finance

Combining (A19), (A20), and (A16) yields

 

1 g1 2 2 g1 2
E½PT  P1 jP1  P 40
¼  ðsZ1 þ se1 Þ þ sN  sZ1 o0:
2 2
ðA21Þ
p 2 2
Q.E.D.

, P0 ¼ V
Proof of Proposition 5: Given that P1 ¼ V
þ l0 w0, and the optimal de-
mand at t 5 1, the correlation is
CovðX1I ; P0  P1 Þ

   

g1 1  d g0 g
g g0
¼E y1 þ y0 þ
gX0L  1  0 e0 y0 þ X0L ; ðA22Þ
2l1 2d 2l0 2l0 2l0
which simplifies to the expression in the statement of the proposition. Q.E.D.

Proof of Proposition 6:

(a)
CovðX1I ; P0  P1 jX0I ¼ 0Þ

   

g1 1  d g0 g
g g0
¼E y1 þ y0 þ ð
gX0L  1  0 e0 y0 þ X0L jy0 ¼ 0
2l1 2d 2l0 2l0 2l0
!
2
1  d s L0 2 1d se0
¼
gsL0 ¼ s2 40: ðA23Þ
2d sy0 2d se0 þ s2y0 L0
2

(b)
CovðX1I ; P0  P1 jX1I ¼ X0I Þ


  2 ðA24Þ
g0 g0 g
¼E  y0 y0 þ X0L
¼  0 s2y0 ¼ sL0 sy0 o0:
2l0 2l0 2l0

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