We investigate how the reassignment of a fund's Morningstar category affects fund flow and Morningstar star rating. We find that funds assigned to a different category gain positive abnormal flows and this effect is significant mainly for high-rated funds. Category reassignment does not improve a fund's star rating on average, and flows are less responsive to a star-rating change if the rating change is likely to be driven by category reassignment. The positive abnormal flows captured by high-rated funds after category reassignment are consistent with a visibility story: some investors filter funds by Morningstar category and star rating, and category reassignment makes a fund more visible to a new group of investors if the fund is highly rated. In contrast, a low-rated fund is likely to be selected only by investors who do not refer to the fund's Morningstar information and, hence, gains little visibility from category reassignment. We also find evidence that more sophisticated investors are more likely to consider not only fund rating but also fund category when evaluating fund performance.

我们调查了基金晨星类别的重新分配如何影响基金流动和晨星星级评级。我们发现分配到不同类别的基金获得了正的异常流量，这种影响主要对高评级基金显着。平均而言，类别重新分配不会提高基金的星级评级，如果评级变化可能是由类别重新分配驱动的，则流量对星级评级变化的反应较小。类别重新分配后高评级基金捕获的正异常流量与可见性故事一致：一些投资者根据晨星类别和星级筛选基金，如果基金高度额定。相比之下，低评级基金很可能只会被那些不参考该基金晨星信息的投资者选择，因此，类别重新分配几乎没有可见性。我们还发现有证据表明，更成熟的投资者在评估基金业绩时更有可能不仅考虑基金评级，还考虑基金类别。