| As the introduction of the ‘pension market’ policy,mutual funds will play an more and more important role in the national economy.Now the new regulatory measures put emphasis on the reduction of the principal-agent problem and investor protection.This paper is concerned the phenomenon of flexibly adjust risk strategies of the second half of the year by fund managers according to the performance pressure the first half of the year,the academic circles call it the ‘Fund Tournament’.It will cause potential risks to the interests of investors and exacerbate market volatility.It is a typical principal-agent problem in the fund market and is an important issue under the current policy.At present,the academic circle shares different research perspectives on the research of the Fund Tournament and the moderating effect of performance differentiation on the Tournament,and the conclusions are not yet robust.Therefore,this paper focus on the construction of a robust and self-consistent theoretical framework.Based on previous literature and theoretical basis,this paper sorts out the formation mechanism of Fund Tournaments,concludes that the path mechanism of the moderating effect of performance differentiation on tournaments is the path of‘incentive theory’ and the path of ‘two-stage game’,and innovatively points out that‘performance-flow’ path is also one of the important paths.This paper improved the study of the mechanism of the Fund Tournament and demonstrated it,provided a robust and self-consistent theoretical basis for policy implementation,and has strong policy significance.Based on the theoretical framework,the paper collects relevant data of China’s mutual funds from 2012 to 2021 according to the research hypotheses,and uses empirical research to verify the relationship and path mechanism between the performance pressure in the first half of the year,performance differentiation and risk shift in the second half of the year.The paper found:(1)In the first half of the year,funds with lower and larger performance pressure will increase their risk level in the second half of the year,that is,the tournament shows a ‘U-shaped’ relationship.(2)A high performance differentiation in the first half of the year will inhibit the "U-shaped" relationship.Under high differentiation,funds with low pressure are more aggressive than those with high pressure.(3)There is a positive correlation between ‘performance and flow relationship’,and performance differentiation will inhibit the positive relationship,which is an important conduction path of performance differentiation affecting the Tournament.(4)Funds of different kinds and sizes are heterogeneous,the‘equity funds’ and large funds have smaller championship intensity,the ‘performanceflow’ paths are not significant,and the moderating effect of performance differentiation on the Tournament is also smaller.According to the research conclusion,this paper believes that investors bounded rationality,unreasonable salary incentive system,internal control and operating standards,the intensity of external supervision,etc.are more related to the intensity of fund tournament and the ‘fluctuations’ in the moderating effect of performance differentiation on the Tournament.Therefore,this article puts forward policy suggestions such as improving the internal control system,optimizing the salary structure,improving the external supervision system,and strengthening investor education,in order to reduce the intensity of Fund Tournament and the ‘fluctuations’ in the moderating effect of performance differentiation on the Tournament. |
