Consider the following facts about hedge funds:
1. "[The] share of industry assets held by firms with more than $1 billion under management has risen gradually from about 75 percent in 2006 to about 82 percent at the start of this year . . . ."
2. "Yet research . . . suggests that older and larger [funds] tend to deliver lower absolute returns than smaller and younger ones."
3. "[Large] funds . . . fare less badly than [their] smaller brethren in the crisis year of 2008."
a. What is a hedge fund?
b. Are these three facts contradictory, or can you provide a consistent explanation for them?