Mutual funds are the primary providers of investment management services to 401(k) pension plans. These plans are complex to operate and administer and subject to multiple regulators. Third-party revenue sharing is used to pay some portion of plan service provider costs, other than employer/plan...

This article explores the relationships of mutual fund advertising and investor skill in making fund choices. Fund advertising dominates the choices of unsophisticated investors. Advertising appeals to investor emotions by resonating with current beliefs, not by providing information that...

In summary, the ex ante evidence suggests strong preference relationships for the three sets of risk-return variables analyzed. Further, there appear to be differences among the nature and shape of the relationships as evidenced by the statistical tests: one, the association between risk and...

The controversy whether mutual fund shareholders should invest primarily in actively managed funds index funds continues. But, while there may be a small number of portfolio managers who provide evidence of persistency in high performance (assuming they meet the daunting statistical burden of...

What the study findings say is that there are identified input/output and profile variables that are significantly different between the Morningstar 500's (1999) large-cap mutual funds that are DEA performance efficient and inefficient. The Sharpe Index represents the DEA output variable. That...

This study provides in-depth coverage of important findings surrounding the question of why investors continue to buy underperforming actively managed mutual funds. This issue is complicated by the finding active managers have skill that allows them to add fund value, but which is not shared...

Since the 2003 mutual funds scandal, it has become quite clear that thoughtful, long-term individual investors should focus on identifying and investing in stewardship funds. The purpose of this study is to provide readily available approaches for individual investors to use in the...

The objective of this study is to take some of the mystery out of mutual fund revenue sharing, but without being able to say investors have transparent disclosure. Topics begin with the transition from directed brokerage to revenue sharing. The discussions that follow include directed brokerage...

There are several regulatory, nuanced, and interpretive discussions of mutual fund distribution issues, including revenue sharing, 12b-1 fees, and defensive 12b-1 plans. The world of fund distribution to intermediaries for sales of fund shares is not quantum physics, but it is much more hidden...

The literature has been unable to provide a definitive model of the sources and nature of mutual fund scale economies and diseconomies. This study provides findings on the sources and nature of fund economies and diseconomies with respect to expenses, size, performance, trading, and numerous...