The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns

We would like to thank Malcolm Baker, Nick Barberis, John Campbell, Judy Chevalier, Jennifer Conrad, Kent Daniel, Will Goetzmann, Steve Kaplan, Owen Lamont, Alexander Ljungqvist, Toby Moskowitz, Fiona Scott Morton, Ludovic Phalippou, Bob Shiller, Jeremy Stein, Mike Weisbach, and seminar participants at the University of Chicago, Yale University, London Business School, Harvard University, University of Illinois, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, 2007 Asset Pricing Mini Conference at Washington University, AQR Capital Management, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management for helpful comments. We also thank BoardEx and Linda Cechova for providing firm board data, and Morningstar and Annette Larson for providing mutual fund data. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.