December 13, 2018
The New York Times reported on an analysis of returns on the endowments of the Ivy League schools over the last decade. It found that all the schools’ endowments lagged a portfolio that was 60 percent stock index funds and 40 percent bond funds. (The gap with index funds would be even larger if the mix were 70 percent stock, 30 percent bonds.)
The Ivies invest heavily in hedge funds, which typically charge fees equal to 2 percent of the money invested plus 20 percent of returns over a benchmark. It seems that this pattern of investment is not doing very well for the schools, although some of the richest people in the country run hedge funds.
On the plus side for these schools, by promoting upward redistribution, they are creating more opportunities for their economics, sociology, and other programs, that try to design policies to reduce inequality and increase mobility.
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