TY - JOUR AU - Lakonishok,Josef AU - Shleifer,Andrei AU - Thaler,Richard AU - Vishny,Robert TI - Window Dressing by Pension Fund Managers JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 3617 PY - 1991 Y2 - February 1991 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3617 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3617.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Josef Lakonishok University of Illinois, Department of Finance College of Commerce & Business Administration 1206 S. Sixth Street Champaign, IL 61820 Tel: 217/333-7185 Fax: 217/244-1151 E-Mail: jlakonishok@yahoo.com Andrei Shleifer Department of Economics Harvard University Littauer Center M-9 Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/495-5046 Fax: 617/496-1708 E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu Richard H. Thaler Booth School of Business University of Chicago 5807 South Woodlawn Ave Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: 773/702-5208 Fax: 773/834-9134 E-Mail: richard.thaler@chicagobooth.edu Robert W. Vishny Booth School of Business The University of Chicago 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: 773/702-2522 Fax: 773/834-1920 E-Mail: Rvishny@gmail.com AB - This paper takes a first look at investment strategies of managers of 769 pension funds, with total assets of $129 billion at the end of 1989. The data show that managers of these funds tend to oversell stocks that have performed poorly. Relative sales of losers accelerate in the fourth quarter, when funds' portfolios are closely examined by the sponsors. This result supports the view that fund managers "window dress" their portfolios to impress sponsors and suggests that managers are evaluated on their individual stock selections and not just aggregate portfolio performance. ER -