CFA Institute Research Foundation Publications
Free books, briefs and literature reviews commissioned from leading academics and practitioners on asset allocation, return expectations, governance and investment practice. Rigorous, practitioner-focused work, posted as free PDFs.
Free to read
The Research Foundation is funded by an endowment and posts its publications as free PDFs. The catalog is divided into books, briefs, literature reviews and multimedia. Authors are typically senior academics or practitioners, and the topics follow what institutional investors are working through: long-run return expectations, the total portfolio approach and how investment committees work.
Recent examples show the range. Exponential Wealth, by Roger Ibbotson and Laurence Siegel, extends the long history of US stock and bond returns and introduces new indices to carry on the SBBI dataset. A critical literature review weighs the evidence on the total portfolio approach, and Bernd Scherer's book covers how investment committees should be governed and designed.
Use the literature reviews to get up to speed on a topic quickly, and the books when you need the full argument and the data.
Start with
-
1
Exponential Wealth: Centuries of Stock and Bond Returns
Ibbotson and Siegel on long-run returns, the historical base for any capital market assumptions.
-
2
Total Portfolio Approach: A Critical Literature Review
A balanced review of the allocation framework pension and sovereign funds are debating.
-
3
Investment Committees: Governance and Design Choices
Practical guidance on how institutional decisions actually get made.