{"title":"A skeptical appraisal of the bootstrap approach in fund performance evaluation","authors":"Huazhu Zhang, Cheng Yan","doi":"10.1111/fmii.12093","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>It has become standard practice in the fund performance evaluation literature to use the bootstrap approach to distinguish “skills” from “luck”, while its reliability has not been subject to rigorous statistical analysis. This paper reviews and critiques the bootstrap schemes used in the literature, and provides a simulation analysis of the validity and reliability of the bootstrap approach by applying it to evaluating the performance of hypothetical funds under various assumptions. We argue that this approach can be misleading, regardless of using alpha estimates or their t-statistics. While alternative bootstrap schemes can result in improvements, they are not foolproof either. The case can be worse if the benchmark model is misspecified. It is therefore only with caution that we can use the bootstrap approach to evaluate the performance of funds and we offer some suggestions for improving it.</p>","PeriodicalId":39670,"journal":{"name":"Financial Markets, Institutions and Instruments","volume":"27 2","pages":"49-86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/fmii.12093","citationCount":"7","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Financial Markets, Institutions and Instruments","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/fmii.12093","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Economics, Econometrics and Finance","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 7
Abstract
It has become standard practice in the fund performance evaluation literature to use the bootstrap approach to distinguish “skills” from “luck”, while its reliability has not been subject to rigorous statistical analysis. This paper reviews and critiques the bootstrap schemes used in the literature, and provides a simulation analysis of the validity and reliability of the bootstrap approach by applying it to evaluating the performance of hypothetical funds under various assumptions. We argue that this approach can be misleading, regardless of using alpha estimates or their t-statistics. While alternative bootstrap schemes can result in improvements, they are not foolproof either. The case can be worse if the benchmark model is misspecified. It is therefore only with caution that we can use the bootstrap approach to evaluate the performance of funds and we offer some suggestions for improving it.
期刊介绍:
Financial Markets, Institutions and Instruments bridges the gap between the academic and professional finance communities. With contributions from leading academics, as well as practitioners from organizations such as the SEC and the Federal Reserve, the journal is equally relevant to both groups. Each issue is devoted to a single topic, which is examined in depth, and a special fifth issue is published annually highlighting the most significant developments in money and banking, derivative securities, corporate finance, and fixed-income securities.