Household Discretionary Wealth and the Cost to Mutual Funds
研究发现，当家庭因发薪日异常（如一个月有五个星期五）而获得额外可支配财富时，散户会大量买入共同基金，导致基金被迫调整组合并承担成本，且基金规模和流动性可缓解此影响。
We show that shocks to household discretionary wealth, identified as months with five Fridays when biweekly and weekly paid workers receive an extra paycheck, are accompanied by higher retail mutual fund inflows and lower returns. These outcomes imply that household investors trade en masse with their wealth, which can cause funds to make costly portfolio adjustments. Consistent with retail investors driving the results, we use data from the Robinhood online brokerage platform and find that retail investors increase their stock holdings during these periods. We also find that during five Friday months, sentiment-based trading increases in retail mutual funds. Consistent with mutual funds’ mitigation of the shocks to fund flows, larger and more liquid funds’ performance is less affected. Collectively, we provide evidence that households trade in response to wealth shocks and this imposes real costs on mutual funds.