How University Endowments Respond to Financial Market Shocks: Evidence and Implications
研究了大学捐赠基金在金融市场负面冲击下会主动减少支出，表现出类似“囤积”的行为，尤其当基金价值接近校长任期初的基准值时，并分析了这种冲击对大学运营如裁员的影响。
Endowment payouts have become an increasingly important component of universities' revenues in recent decades. We study how universities respond to financial shocks to endowments and thus shed light on a number of existing models of endowment behavior. Endowments actively reduce payouts relative to their stated payout policies following negative, but not positive, shocks. This asymmetric behavior is consistent with “endowment hoarding,” especially among endowments whose current value is close to the benchmark value at the start of the university president's tenure. We also document the effect of negative endowment shocks on university operations, such as personnel cuts.