This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Investment Company Act and the Investment Advisers Act-the key statutes under which mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), closed-end funds, and unit investment trusts are regulated and governed. In the same year that Congress enacted these laws, 1940, the fund industry formed the National Committee of Investment Companies, the trade group that became the Investment Company Institute (ICI). Shortly after its formation, ICI began to collect mutual fund asset and flow data, launching a statistical and research program that remains one of the Institute’s core activities and central strengths. This data collection program has expanded greatly over time, with ICI currently managing 18 different fund surveys. Our historical data, some extending back nearly three-quarters of a century, provide perspective about funds and their investors across changing market cycles and an evolving investor base. One of the first projects I worked on when I joined ICI in 1996—a study showing how bond fund investors react during bond market downturns-introduced me to this historical record. At the time, there was an ongoing debate about how fund investors would react to market declines, because fund assets had risen from about $1 billion in 1940 to $3.5 trillion in 1996. Commentators and researchers were concerned that fund investors would leave the markets en masse during a downturn, destabilizing a financial system in which funds were playing a larger role.