IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v119y2004i2p403-456..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Ali Hortaçsu
  • Chad Syverson

Abstract

We investigate the role that nonportfolio fund differentiation and information/search frictions play in creating two salient features of the mutual fund industry: the large number of funds and the sizable dispersion in fund fees. In a case study, we find that despite the financial homogeneity of S&P 500 index funds, this sector exhibits the fund proliferation and fee dispersion observed in the broader industry. We show how extra-portfolio mechanisms explain these features. These mechanisms also suggest an explanation for the puzzling late-1990s shift in sector assets to more expensive (and often newly entered) funds: an influx of high-information-cost novice investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 403-456.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:119:y:2004:i:2:p:403-456.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/0033553041382184
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Khorana, Ajay & Servaes, Henri, 1999. "The Determinants of Mutual Fund Starts," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 1043-1074.
    2. Small, Kenneth A & Rosen, Harvey S, 1981. "Applied Welfare Economics with Discrete Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(1), pages 105-130, January.
    3. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    4. C.J. Krizan & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2002. "The Link Between Aggregate and Micro Productivity Growth: Evidence from Retail Trade," Working Papers 02-18, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    5. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    6. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    7. Paul Klemperer, 1989. "Price Wars Caused by Switching Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(3), pages 405-420.
    8. Erik R. Sirri & Peter Tufano, 1998. "Costly Search and Mutual Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1589-1622, October.
    9. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "Career Concerns of Mutual Fund Managers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 389-432.
    10. Burdett, Kenneth & Judd, Kenneth L, 1983. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 955-969, July.
    11. Matthew Spiegel & Harry Mamaysky, 2001. "A Theory of Mutual Funds: Optimal Fund Objectives and Industry Organization," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2507, Yale School of Management.
    12. Amil Petrin, 2002. "Quantifying the Benefits of New Products: The Case of the Minivan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 705-729, August.
    13. Carlson, John A & McAfee, R Preston, 1983. "Discrete Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 480-493, June.
    14. Falkenstein, Eric G, 1996. "Preferences for Stock Characteristics as Revealed by Mutual Fund Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 111-135, March.
    15. Matthew I. Spiegel & Harry Mamaysky, 2001. "A Theory of Mutual Funds: Optimal Fund Objectives and Industry Organization," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm219, Yale School of Management.
    16. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    17. N. Gregory Mankiw & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Free Entry and Social Inefficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 48-58, Spring.
    18. Flinn, C. & Heckman, J., 1982. "New methods for analyzing structural models of labor force dynamics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 115-168, January.
    19. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1987. "Competition and the Number of Firms in a Market: Are Duopolies More Competitive than Atomistic Markets?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1041-1061, October.
    20. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Gold, 2010. "Fiduciary Finance," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13813.
    2. Clemens Sialm & T. Mandy Tham, 2016. "Spillover Effects in Mutual Fund Companies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(5), pages 1472-1486, May.
    3. Iannotta, Giuliano & Navone, Marco, 2012. "The cross-section of mutual fund fee dispersion," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 846-856.
    4. Casavecchia, Lorenzo, 2016. "Fund managers' herding and the sensitivity of fund flows to past performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 205-221.
    5. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. Servaes, Henri & Sigurdsson, Kari, 2022. "The Costs and Benefits of Performance Fees in Mutual Funds," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    7. Meunier, Guy & Ponssard, Jean-Pierre, 2020. "Optimal policy and network effects for the deployment of zero emission vehicles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    8. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    9. Christopher Knittel & Jeffrey Heisler & John J. Neumann & Scott Stewart, 2004. "Why Do Institutional Plan Sponsors Hire and Fire their Investment Managers?," Working Papers 1, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    10. Clemens Sialm & Laura T. Starks & Hanjiang Zhang, 2015. "Defined Contribution Pension Plans: Sticky or Discerning Money?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 805-838, April.
    11. Martin B. Hackmann, 2019. "Incentivizing Better Quality of Care: The Role of Medicaid and Competition in the Nursing Home Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1684-1716, May.
    12. Bergstresser, Daniel & Poterba, James, 2002. "Do after-tax returns affect mutual fund inflows?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 381-414, March.
    13. José Luis Moraga-González & Zsolt Sándor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2015. "Consumer Search and Prices in the Automobile Market," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-033/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. Loranth Gyongyi & Sciubba Emanuela, 2006. "Relative Performance, Risk and Entry in the Mutual Fund Industry," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, September.
    15. Ping Hu & Jayant Kale & Ajay Subramanian, 2003. "Compensation, Career Concerns, and Relative Risk Choices by Mutual Fund Managers: Theory and Evidence," Levine's Bibliography 666156000000000349, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Anthony Tay & Jacques Olivier, 2008. "Time-Varying Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Working Papers 10-2008, Singapore Management University, School of Economics, revised Jun 2008.
    17. repec:smu:ecowpa:1301 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    19. Robert W. Faff & Jerry T. Parwada & Hun‐Lune Poh, 2007. "The Information Content of Australian Managed Fund Ratings," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(9‐10), pages 1528-1547, November.
    20. Fang, Jieyan & Kempf, Alexander & Trapp, Monika, 2014. "Fund Manager Allocation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 661-674.
    21. James, Christopher & Karceski, Jason, 2006. "Investor monitoring and differences in mutual fund performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 2787-2808, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:119:y:2004:i:2:p:403-456.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.