Results are reported of an interview survey conducted with 64 fund managers. The objective of the survey is to identify the performance appraisal and reward systems under which the fund managers are operating, and to identify ways in which this impacts upon their investment heuristics. The results of the interviews indicate that fund managers are evaluated on a regular basis against performance benchmarks, although the extent of such evaluation and the choice of benchmark differs according to the types of funds under management. The papers hows th at performance evaluation affects fund managers' attitudes to risk, to motivation and to time horizons. It is shown that fund managers believe that the quarterly relative performance monitoring to which many funds and fund managers are subject, results in the adoption of a more short-termist attitude and approach to the management of the funds in question.Performance Monitoring Fund Managers Short-TERMISM,

This article examines the investment practices of life assurance firms within the United Kingdom, through an analysis of the asset holdings of the sector over the period 1900 to 1965. The data are drawn from the detailed annual returns to the Board of Trade. Aggregate, sectional and individual company data are used in the study. Major trends in investment practice are identified and analysed; and cross-sectional comparisons are made. The main emphasis is on the contribution of the life assurance sector towards provision of financial support to the British industrial sector. From the beginning of the period a significant proportion of life firms' investments was held in corporate securities, although over time the composition moved away from fixed-interest stock towards share holdings. The study highlights the great variation in investment practice across individual life assurance firms, with no strong evidence of convergence over time excepting investments in equity holdings.

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The article examines the behaviour of two leading English clearing banks, the Midland and Westminster, during periods of financial distress suffered by a sample of business clients during the early postwar decades. Such periods provide valuable insight into the nature of bank-business relationships at that time for, in a sense, bank reaction during periods of financial difficulty for client firms helps define the limits to bank support and commitment to such firms. The article examines the banks' behaviour within the context of a transaction bank model (as opposed to what might be termed a relationship bank model) and the results are compared with those of an earlier study by the authors of pre-First World War bank practice. The results show that the banks did operate many of the control mechanisms associated with transaction banking and that the proficiency of such controls ensured that the banks' interests remained reasonably secure even for the high risk loans under study. Importantly, however, the evidence also shows that the banks did not exercise a stark choice between, on the one hand, supporting clients while relying upon traditional control mechanisms, and, on the other, withdrawing support. In a significant number of cases, the banks were prepared to invest in gathering more information on a client's business, and in trying to influence the direction of that business. This suggests a more informed and interventionist approach by the banks in these cases compared to the findings in the pre-1914 study. For the sample of cases examined, it seems that while much of the behaviour of the two banks remained consistent with the transaction bank model, compared to our pre-1914 findings there was also a greater tendency towards a more flexible, 'hands-on' approach in extremis. In these cases, English bank behaviour European Review of Economic History, 7, 365-388. Printed in the United Kingdom