I remember exactly when I began to appreciate the complexity of the moral issues money management entails: October 8, 2009. I received a phone call from the eminent MIT economist Paul Samuelson, who had been my teacher when I was a graduate student in the early 1970s. He was 94 years old at the time, and two months later he died. I was so impressed by the call that I took notes on it in my diary.
Samuelson was responding to my recent publications advocating expanded insurance, futures, and options markets to mitigate the financial risks – for example, those related to housing prices and occupational incomes – that ordinary people face. He said that these markets could, if pitched to the general population, turn into “casino markets,” with people using them to gamble, rather than to protect themselves.
He then brought up the example of Bogle, who “gave up a billion dollars for a concept,” Samuelson said. “He could easily have cashed this in,” but he didn’t. “The miracle that was Vanguard came from Bogle’s principles.”
I thought he was right. In the long run, markets reward principled people. But there is still need for an expanded set of risk markets, because these markets can – and do – carry out useful functions, including risk management, incentivization, and orienting business.
The problem is that attention to these markets requires intelligent and hard-working people to help others in their investing. Theirs is not a zero-sum game, for they help direct resources to better uses. And these people must be paid. Even Vanguard, which now has a number of different index funds, hires investment managers and charges a management fee, albeit a low one.
Not every fund needs a low fee. We live in a world where constant and rapid change and innovation require more attention, and attention is costly. While many financial managers are at times unscrupulous, a higher management fee is not always a sign that something is wrong.
But Bogle is still a hero of mine, because he provided an honest product and was motivated by a sincere desire to help people. And he should be a hero to all, because he showed that markets eventually recognize integrity.
Robert J. Shiller, a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, is professor of economics at Yale University and the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index of US house prices. He is the author of Irrational Exuberance, the third edition of which was published in January 2015, and, most recently, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, co-authored with George Akerlof.