We investigate if the perceived attractiveness of mutual fund managers influences mutual fund flows. We hand-collect professional photographs of managers and use machine learning algorithms to develop two objective proxies of attractiveness. We find that, after controlling for fund characteristics, performance measures and manager characteristics, mutual funds managed by ‘attractive’ managers receive higher fund flows. Our results are robust to matched sample analysis, Heckman two-stage selection, alternate model specifications. Attractiveness bias is predominantly witnessed within retail investors and does not entail superior fund performance. Our results suggest that mutual fund investors exhibit a bias for seemingly attractive mutual fund managers.

我们调查共同基金经理的感知吸引力是否会影响共同基金流动。我们手工收集经理的专业照片，并使用机器学习算法来开发两个客观的吸引力指标。我们发现，在控制了基金特征、业绩指标和经理人特征后，“有吸引力”的经理人管理的共同基金获得了更高的资金流量。我们的结果对匹配样本分析、Heckman 两阶段选择、替代模型规格具有鲁棒性。吸引力偏差主要出现在散户投资者中，并不意味着卓越的基金业绩。我们的结果表明，共同基金投资者对看似有吸引力的共同基金经理表现出偏见。