Valuing active managers, fees, and fund discounts

We use risk-neutral valuation to value a portfolio and decompose the value into the components accruing to its stakeholders-service providers, portfol io managers, and the owners. The analysis incorporates managers' expected p erformance and contract-renewal issues. It provides a paradigm for valuing active portfolio management. A managed portfolio's economic value is shown to differ from its net asset value. The article provides an improved founda tion for computing fair closed-end fund discounts and a partial explanation of equilibrium in the markets for open- and closed-end mutual funds. The a rticle implies that changes in closed-end fund discounts are the analog of open-end fund inflows. It also shows that closed-end fund discounts are rel atively sensitive to small changes in anticipated fund performance.