This paper examines the impact of within-firm connections on mutual fund performance. Analyzing 8,034 mutual fund managers, I find that well-connected managers within fund families exhibit poorer performance and add less value. A one-standard deviation increase in within-firm connectedness is associated with $171,436 lower value added. Using manager departures as exogenous shocks in a difference-in-differences framework, I establish causality. I propose that interpersonal leverage drives these negative results, supported by lower turnover-performance sensitivities and less distinctive and active management for better-connected managers. These findings highlight potential downsides of internal networks in asset management firms.

We study the relationship between employee satisfaction and mutual fund performance using employee reviews from Glassdoor.com. A 1-point increase on the 5-point job satisfaction scale for asset management-related jobs increases abnormal fund returns by 0.3% / year. To address endogeneity issues, we examine M\&A deals between asset management companies in the U.S. In the year following an acquisition, funds acquired by a company with higher employee satisfaction exhibit a 2.12% increase in abnormal performance relative to similar non-acquired funds. Higher satisfaction is positively related to active share, tracking error, and a mutual fund's investment style distinctiveness.

We investigate the effect of market thickness, defined as the number of subadvisors the fund family could contract with, on outsourcing in the mutual fund industry. Our empirical analysis shows that market thickness is a key driver in the decision to enter an outsourcing relationship and impacts the way fee revenues are shared. We link the impact of market thickness on the relative power of both parties in the outsourcing relationship to the threat of dismissal of the subadvisor and show that outsourced funds operating in thick markets perform better.

The connection between dividends and stock returns is fundamental to finance. Recent changes in the investment landscape have nevertheless challenged this past relationship. A small number of highly visible firms have had strong earnings growth and continued to outperform the market in the past years despite offering no dividends. More broadly the stark increase in share repurchases could have weekend the longstanding relationship between returns and dividends. Using a sample that spans over 91 years, we first show that dividends still play a vital role for stock returns and subsequently contrast portfolios formed on dividend information alone with portfolios that also look at repurchases as a substitute for dividends. Our findings indicate that the inclusion of repurchases in portfolio construction leads to higher turnover, trading costs, and volatility, while offering only a limited upside in returns. Furthermore, we confirm that share buybacks are much more cyclical and volatile in nature than dividend payments. Therefore, share buybacks do not offer a good alternative for investors looking for regular and consistent cash payments. Moreover, we investigate the relationship between dividend yields and forward earnings growth. While we find a stark difference in earnings growth between low and high dividend yield portfolios looking backwords (2.64% 5-year), once we investigate a forward-looking measure the difference between earnings growth becomes substantially smaller at 1.74% (5-year).