Revenue sharing payments are mutual fund distribution costs that conflict with continuing shareholder interests by directly reducing fund assets and shareholder returns. The “stated” purpose of revenue sharing payments is to defray broker costs of servicing customer accounts and for...

This article explores the relationships of mutual fund advertising and investor skill in making fund choices. Some key takeaways can be drawn from our analysis of the four factors affecting the relationship between mutual fund advertising and investors' fund choices, and whether they lead...

The private pension fund system in Turkey presents a unique institutional structure where bank holding companies can own both private pension companies and asset management firms. More often than not, pension companies delegate their operational mandates to the asset management arm of the same...

How to prevent runs on open-end mutual funds? In recent years, markets have observed an innovation that changed the way open-end funds are priced. Alternative pricing rules (known as swing pricing) adjust funds' net asset values to pass on funds' trading costs to transacting shareholders. Using...

It is not enough to say that particular mutual funds have very excessive and most excessive expense ratios. In addition, these high cost funds are associated with negative portfolio characteristics that include more risky and less diversified portfolios, higher trading costs and lower earnings....

The Investment Company Act of 1940 states that the interests of shareholders are compromised when mutual funds are operated in the interest of fund advisers. In this regard, one of the Act's major objectives is to ensure that investors receive adequate and accurate information.This study focuses...

The study reviews important interactions between mutual funds and individual investors in choosing equity mutual funds. An important question is why both sophisticated and unsophisticated investors continue to invest in actively managed funds that generally underperform. Actively managed funds...

We document the reaction of money market fund (MMF) investors and portfolio managers to a new SEC regulation that came into effect in October 2016. This regulation forces all prime and municipal MMFs to adopt a system of redemption gates and fees and institutional prime and muni MMFs to also...

The 2003 mutual funds scandal that exploded upon the public revealed something that had long been known to insiders: Mutual fund advisers often approve and allow frequent trading, frequent trading arbitrage, and late trading arbitrage to selected traders. To increase adviser profits, the latter...