The Mutual Fund Industry

The Mutual Fund Industry
Author: R. Glenn Hubbard
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 023152532X
GET BOOK

Download The Mutual Fund Industry Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Mutual funds form the bedrock of retirement savings in the United States, and, considering their rapid growth, are sure to be more critical in the future. Because the size of fees paid by investors to mutual fund advisers can strongly affect the return on investment, these fees have become a contentious issue in Congress and the courts, with many arguing that investment advisers grow rich at the expense of investors. This ground-breaking book not only conceptualizes a new economic model of the mutual fund industry, but also uses this model to test for price competition between investment advisers, evaluating the assertion that market forces fail to protect investors' returns from excessive fees. Highly experienced authors track the growth of the industry over the past twenty-five years and present arguments and evidence both for and against theories of adviser malfeasance. The authors review the regulatory history of mutual fund fees and summarize leading case decisions addressing excessive fees. Revealing the extent to which the governance structure of mutual funds truly impacts fund performance, this book provides the best understanding of today's mutual fund industry and is a vital tool for investors, money managers, fund directors, securities lawyers, economists, and anyone concerned with the regulation of mutual funds.

The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation

The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation
Author: William Baumol
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9400921853
GET BOOK

Download The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The original impetus for this research was provided several years ago by a request to assist Counsel for Fidelity Management and Research Corporation in analyzing the mutual fund industry, with particular emphasis on money market mutual funds. We were asked to focus our efforts on the mechanism by which the advisory fees of mutual funds are determined. This request arose out of litigation that challenged the level of advisory fees charged to the shareholders of the Fidelity Cash Reserve Fund. Subsequently, we were asked to provide similar assistance to Counsel for T. Rowe Price Associates regarding the fees charged to shareholders of their Prime Reserve Fund. 1940, advisers of Under the Investment Company Act of mutual funds have a fiduciary duty with respect to the level of fees they may charge a fund's shareholders. Since the passage of the Investment Company Act, there have been numerous lawsuits brought by shareholders alleging that advisory fees were excessive. In these lawsuits, the courts have failed to provide a set of standards for determining when such fees are excessive. Instead, they have relied on arbitrary and frequently ill-defined criteria for jUdging the reasonableness of fees. This failure to apply economic-based tests for evaluating the fee structure of mutual funds provided the motivation for the present book, which undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the economics of the mutual fund industry.

Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry

Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry
Author: John C. Coates
Publisher:
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2007
Genre: Competition
ISBN:
GET BOOK

Download Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

"Since 1960 the mutual fund industry has grown from 160 funds and $18 billion in assets under management to over 8,000 funds with $10.4 trillion in assets. Yet critics, including Yale Chief Investment Officer David Swensen, Vanguard founder Jack Bogle, and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, call for more fund regulation, claiming that competition has not protected investors from excessive fees. Starting in 2003, the number of class action suits against fund advisors increased sharply, and, consistent with critics' views, some courts have excluded or treated skeptically evidence of competition and comparable fees of other funds. Skepticism about fund competition dates to the 1960s, when the SEC accepted the view that market forces fail to constrain advisory fees, in part because fund boards rarely fire advisors. In this article, we show that economic theory, empirical evidence, and careful analysis of the laws and institutions that shape mutual funds refute this view. Fund critics overlook the most salient characteristic of a mutual fund, redeemable shares. While boards rarely fire advisors, fund investors may fire advisors at any time by redeeming shares and switching into other investments. Industry concentration is low, new entry is common, barriers to entry are low, and empirical studies -- including new evidence presented in this article -- show higher advisory fees significantly reduce fund market shares, and so constrain fees. Fund performance is consistent with competition exerting a strong disciplinary force on funds and fees. Our findings lead us to reject the critics' views in favor of the legal framework established by ʹ36(b) of the Investment Company Act and the lead case interpreting that law (the Gartenberg decision), while suggesting Gartenberg is best interpreted to allow the introduction of evidence regarding competition between funds"--Preface.

Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry

Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry
Author: Coates, IV (John C.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:
GET BOOK

Download Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Since 1960 the mutual fund industry has grown from 160 funds and $18 billion in assets under management to over 8,000 funds with $10.4 trillion in assets. Yet critics - including Yale Chief Investment Officer David Swensen, Vanguard founder Jack Bogle, and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer - call for more fund regulation, claiming that competition has not protected investors from excessive fees. Starting in 2003, the number of class action suits against fund advisors increased sharply, and, consistent with critics' views, some courts have excluded or treated skeptically evidence of competition and comparable fees of other funds. Skepticism about fund competition dates to the 1960s, when the SEC accepted the view that market forces fail to constrain advisory fees, in part because fund boards rarely fire advisors. In this article, we show that economic theory, empirical evidence, and careful analysis of the laws and institutions that shape mutual funds refute this view. Fund critics overlook the most salient characteristic of a mutual fund: redeemable shares. While boards rarely fire advisors, fund investors may fire advisors at any time by redeeming shares and switching into other investments. Industry concentration is low, new entry is common, barriers to entry are low, and empirical studies - including new evidence presented in this article - show higher advisory fees significantly reduce fund market shares, and so constrain fees. Fund performance is consistent with competition exerting a strong disciplinary force on funds and fees. Our findings lead us to reject the critics' views in favor of the legal framework established by sect;36(b) of the Investment Company Act and the lead case interpreting that law (the Gartenberg decision), while suggesting Gartenberg is best interpreted to allow the introduction of evidence regarding competition between funds.

The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation

The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation
Author: William Baumol
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 242
Release: 1989-12-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0792390431
GET BOOK

Download The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The original impetus for this research was provided several years ago by a request to assist Counsel for Fidelity Management and Research Corporation in analyzing the mutual fund industry, with particular emphasis on money market mutual funds. We were asked to focus our efforts on the mechanism by which the advisory fees of mutual funds are determined. This request arose out of litigation that challenged the level of advisory fees charged to the shareholders of the Fidelity Cash Reserve Fund. Subsequently, we were asked to provide similar assistance to Counsel for T. Rowe Price Associates regarding the fees charged to shareholders of their Prime Reserve Fund. 1940, advisers of Under the Investment Company Act of mutual funds have a fiduciary duty with respect to the level of fees they may charge a fund's shareholders. Since the passage of the Investment Company Act, there have been numerous lawsuits brought by shareholders alleging that advisory fees were excessive. In these lawsuits, the courts have failed to provide a set of standards for determining when such fees are excessive. Instead, they have relied on arbitrary and frequently ill-defined criteria for jUdging the reasonableness of fees. This failure to apply economic-based tests for evaluating the fee structure of mutual funds provided the motivation for the present book, which undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the economics of the mutual fund industry.

Conflicts of Interest and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry

Conflicts of Interest and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry
Author: Ajay Khorana
Publisher:
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:
GET BOOK

Download Conflicts of Interest and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Mutual fund investors generally desire high risk-adjusted performance at low cost, which is not necessarily the objective of fund families. Fund families generally want to maximize assets under management (i.e., their market share) and the resulting management fees. This paper examines how these conflicting objectives affect competition and investor behavior in the mutual fund industry for the universe of U.S. mutual fund families over the period 1979-1998. Over this period, industry assets increased by a factor of twenty, the number of active fund families tripled, and the average market share of a family declined by two thirds. We find that price competition is important in the industry. Families that charge lower fees than the competition gain market share, but only if these fees are above average to begin with. Low-cost families do not lose market share by charging higher fees. In addition, fees charged explicitly for marketing and distribution (12b-1 fees) have a positive impact on market share. We find no evidence that investors derive any benefit from 12b-1 fees. Product differentiation strategies are also effective in obtaining market share. Families that perform better, and start more funds relative to the competition (a measure of innovation) have a higher market share. Innovation is rewarded more if the new fund is more differentiated from existing offerings and is in a less crowded objective. Finally, market share within an investment objective is driven primarily by a family's policies within that objective, but there are important performance spillover effects from other funds in the family. Our findings are robust to various tests for endogeneity of the explanatory variables. Overall, this paper highlights a number of conflicts between fund families and investors.

Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry

Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry
Author: Ali Hortacsu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:
GET BOOK

Download Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Two salient features of the competitive structure of the U.S. mutual fund industry are the large number of funds and the sizeable dispersion in the fees funds charge investors, even within narrow asset classes. Portfolio financial performance differences alone do not seem able to fully explain these features. We investigate whether non-portfolio fund differentiation and information/search frictions also play a role in creating these observed industry characteristics. We focus on their impact in a case study of the retail Samp;P 500 index funds sector. We find that fund proliferation and price dispersion also exist in this sector, despite the funds' financial homogeneity. Furthermore, there was a marked shift in sector assets to more expensive (often newly entered) funds throughout our sample period. Our analysis indicates that these observations are consistent with the presence of both non-portfolio differentiation and information/search frictions. Structural estimation of a novel search-over-differentiated-products model reveals that reasonable magnitudes of investor search costs can explain the considerable price dispersion in the sector, and consumers seem to value funds'' observable attributes such as fund age and the number of other funds in the same fund family in largely plausible ways. The results also suggest that the substantial increase in mutual fund market participation observed during our sample, and the corresponding purchase decisions of novice investors, drove the shift in assets toward more expensive funds. We also find evidence consistent with the presence of switching costs, as distinct from search costs. Using structural estimates of demand parameters and search costs, we investigate the possibility that there are too many sector funds from a social welfare standpoint. The results of this exercise indicate that restricting entry would yield nontrivial gains from reduced search costs and productivity gains from scale economies, but these may be counterbalanced by losses from increased market power and reduced product variety.

Price Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry

Price Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry
Author: Sitikantha Parida
Publisher:
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:
GET BOOK

Download Price Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

We find a puzzling fact about the mutual fund industry that funds operating in more competitive segments charge higher fees. We argue that this surprising positive relation between competition and fund fees is consistent with strategic fee setting by funds. Fund performance is better and more persistent in less competitive segments, which attracts relatively more performance-sensitive investors. This leaves relatively less performance-sensitive investors in more competitive markets. Hence, funds operating in more competitive markets face a relatively inelastic demand curve and take advantage of it by increasing their fees (which reduces investors' net returns). Our findings have important policy implications that market competition on its own may not be sufficient to decrease the fund fees and that regulatory interventions are required to increase investor awareness of mutual fund fees and their adverse impacts on net fund performance.

Mutual Fund Industry Competition and Concentration

Mutual Fund Industry Competition and Concentration
Author: Miguel A. Ferreira
Publisher:
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2009
Genre:
ISBN:
GET BOOK

Download Mutual Fund Industry Competition and Concentration Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This paper examines mutual fund industry competition and concentration in 27 countries using a sample of almost 50,000 mutual funds. The indicators show that the mutual fund industry is concentrated worldwide and some industries present large fund complexes. Countries with common law and higher stock market turnover are associated with low level industry concentration. There is more industry contestability in countries with better quality of institutions and where regulation is more open. Bank concentration and simultaneous restrictions to engage new activities in the financial industry tend to decrease firm entry in the mutual fund industry. The launch of new funds is positively related with openness of regulation and negatively related with industry age. The overall level of fees tend to be higher in countries with low stock market turnover, where industry size is smaller and where foreign mutual fund companies have a larger market share. Moreover, fund proliferation seems to be an important aspect of competition as it is negatively related with mutual fund fees. Overall, the results do not indicate a direct relation between competition and concentration, similar to the findings for the banking industry. Nevertheless, our evidence validates the contention that the degree of competition is important for the variety of products as we find a larger offer of funds in more competitive industries.