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How Rational and Competitive Is the Market for Mutual Funds?

Author

Listed:
  • Markus Leippold
  • Roger Rueegg

Abstract

To explore the rationality and competitiveness of the mutual fund industry, we analyze the alpha of active and index mutual funds from a global sample of more than 60,000 equity and fixed income funds and test the null hypothesis that alphas to investors are zero. We distinguish between institutional and retail investors since there are significant differences in management fees, economies of scale, and information asymmetries between these two groups. Using a new robust statistical test, we cannot reject our null hypothesis for the majority of investment categories. We find that the average active fund has less exposure to traditional risk factors, but higher sensitivity to alternative risk premia. Fund persistence and the impact of size and fees add further support to our conclusion that the mutual fund industry is highly competitive, except for US domestic funds. This set of funds is excessively overfunded compared with other fund categories.

Suggested Citation

  • Markus Leippold & Roger Rueegg, 2020. "How Rational and Competitive Is the Market for Mutual Funds?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 24(3), pages 579-613.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:24:y:2020:i:3:p:579-613.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rof/rfz011
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. John Ammer & John Rogers & Gang Wang & Yang Yu, 2020. "Monetary Policy Expectations, Fund Managers, and Fund Returns: Evidence from China," International Finance Discussion Papers 1285, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. David R. Gallagher & Graham Harman & Camille H. Schmidt & Geoffrey J. Warren, 2022. "Global equity fund performance adjusted for equity and currency factors," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1535-1565, April.
    3. Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez & Amparo Soler-Domínguez & Diego Víctor Mingo-López, 2021. "On management risk and price in the mutual fund industry: style and performance distribution analysis," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 150-171, June.
    4. John Ammer & John Rogers & Gang Wang & Yang Yu, 2023. "Chinese Asset Managers’ Monetary Policy Forecasts and Fund Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 598-616, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Active investing; Index investing; Mutual funds; Robust alpha test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

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