
This paper studies the implications of opacity in financial markets for investor behavior, asset prices, and welfare. Transparent funds (e.g., mutual funds) and opaque funds (e.g., hedge funds) trade transparent assets (e.g., plain-vanilla products) and opaque assets (e.g., structured products). Investors observe neither opaque funds' portfolios nor opaque assets' payoffs. Consistent with empirical observations, an �opacity price premium� arises: opaque assets trade at a premium over transparent ones despite identical payoffs. This accompanies endogenous market segmentation: transparent (opaque) funds trade only transparent (opaque) assets. The opacity price premium incentivizes financial engineers to render transparent assets opaque deliberately.
Management industry, career concerns, fund industry, performance, information, model, size
Management industry, career concerns, fund industry, performance, information, model, size
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| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Top 10% | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
