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...

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...

There are several types of domestic-hybrid mutual funds that apply various stock/bond allocations in efforts to provide full diversification in one portfolio. These “one-stop shopping” funds were initially designed to simplify decision making for long-term investors and pension plan...

The central question addressed in this note is whether it is better to sell (and re-purchase) appreciated assets now and pay today's long-term capital gains tax rate, or wait to realize gains in the future and pay a likely higher capital gains tax rate. The authors argue that a framework based...

This is a first-step mutual funds study that provides analysis and disclosure of the elements of a newly defined total expense ratio, which includes the regulatory expense ratio, brokerage commissions, and implicit trading costs. Three structures are provided that identify whether a particular...

In this study, we provide extensive evidence on the performance and characteristics of 1,779 U.S. domestic, actively managed retail equity mutual funds. We find that expense ratios differ widely among Morningstar categories. Overall, our results indicate that funds with low expense ratios...

This study further develops and defines the concept of normative transparency of disclosure. As defined, mutual fund normative transparency is that fund proactive, voluntary disclosure as well as legal and regulatory disclosure required for investors to be able to make information efficient fund...

Given their simplicity and presumed commodity-like nature, institutional Samp;P 500 Index mutual funds should be subject to active price competition, resulting in only nominal size-adjusted differences in expenses. We find a wide disparity among fund expense ratios and their corresponding...