题目：Cultural Beliefs and Investor Capital Allocation to Delegated Agents: Evidence from Mutual Fund Managers’ Zodiac Years

主讲人：曹杰 

地点：北京师范大学珠海校区励耘楼B310

时间： 2026年9月23日（星期三）下午15:30

摘要：We examine whether investors’ superstitious beliefs about professional asset managers affect capital allocation in China’s mutual fund market. We find that mutual funds experience large outflows during fund managers’ zodiac years, which recurs every twelve years based on an individual’s birth year and is widely believed to be associated with bad luck. There is no evidence of differential pre-trends in fund flows before managers enter their zodiac years. We further exploit regression discontinuity design around zodiac-age thresholds and find a discrete decline in fund flows at the onset of managers’ zodiac years. The negative effect of managers’ zodiac years on fund flows concentrates on funds with poor recent performance, consistent with superstition amplifying investors’ pessimistic beliefs. Our results cannot be explained by changes in fund fundamentals, as managers do not systematically adjust portfolio risk-taking during their zodiac years and zodiac-year funds do not subsequently underperform. Finally, funds increase their liquid asset share during managers’ zodiac years, and stocks held by zodiac-year funds experience temporarily higher return volatility and lower liquidity.

本文考察投资者对于专业资产管理人的民俗信念是否会影响中国公募基金市场中的资本配置。我们发现，在基金经理的本命年期间，基金会经历显著的资金流出。本命年依据个人出生年份每十二年出现一次，并被广泛认为与运势不佳相关。在基金经理进入本命年之前，基金资金流并不存在显著不同的预趋势。我们进一步利用围绕本命年年龄临界点的回归不连续设计（Regression Discontinuity Design, RDD），发现基金经理进入本命年时，基金资金流会出现不连续下降。基金经理本命年对基金资金流的负面影响主要集中于近期业绩较差的基金，这与民俗信念强化投资者悲观预期的解释一致。我们的结果无法由基金基本面的变化所解释：基金经理在本命年期间并不会系统性地调整投资组合的风险承担，而且由处于本命年的基金经理管理的基金随后也没有表现出更差的投资业绩。最后，我们发现，在基金经理本命年期间，基金会提高其流动性资产占比；与此同时，由这些基金持有的股票会暂时出现更高的收益率波动性和更低的流动性。

个人简介：曹杰，香港理工大学会计与金融学院金融学教授、博士生导师。2002年获北京大学经济学学士学位，2009年获美国得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校金融学博士学位。加入香港理工大学之前，曾在香港中文大学商学院任教，并获终身教职金融学副教授。其研究主要聚焦实证资产定价、金融衍生品与可持续金融，研究成果发表于Journal of Financial Economics、Review of Financial Studies、Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis和 Management Science 等国际权威期刊。曹教授现任香港证券及期货事务监察委员会学术评审咨询委员会委员、香港货币及金融研究中心货币研究顾问委员会委员，以及联合国可持续证券交易所倡议学术工作组成员，并担任多本国际金融学期刊的编辑或编委。