Combining novel data on analyst employment history and mutual fund commission payments, we show that client funds generate higher returns on stocks for which they have access to research by industry expert analysts. The outperformance is greater when funds are more important clients and cannot be attributed to tipping. Client funds place modestly higher weights on stocks covered by industry expert analysts and allocate more commissions to brokers providing such coverage. For identification, we exploit exogenous analyst coverage disruptions. Our findings contribute to the debate on whether mutual funds obtain any investment value from access to analysts through the soft-dollar arrangement.

中文翻译：

---

软美元安排有投资价值吗？来自共同基金的证据

结合分析师就业历史和共同基金佣金支付的新数据，我们表明，客户资金在他们可以获得行业专家分析师研究的股票上产生更高的回报。当资金是更重要的客户并且不能归因于小费时，表现会更好。客户资金对行业专家分析师所覆盖的股票的权重略高，并将更多佣金分配给提供此类覆盖范围的经纪人。为了识别，我们利用外生分析师覆盖中断。我们的研究结果有助于讨论共同基金是否通过软美元安排获得分析师的任何投资价值。