European index funds and exchange-traded funds underperform their benchmarks by 50 to 150 basis points per annum. The explanatory power of dividend withholding taxes as a determinant of this underperformance is at least at par with fund expenses. Dividend taxes also explain performance...

European index funds and exchange-traded funds underperform their benchmarks by 50 to 150 basis points per annum. The explanatory power of dividend withholding taxes as a determinant of this underperformance is at least at par with fund expenses. Dividend taxes also explain performance...

Abnormal price reaction around S&P 500 index changes has been considered as strong evidence that long term demand for stocks is downward sloping. This notion, however, has recently lost popularity due to the evidence that new additions are accompanied with a contemporaneous change in future...

We show that the performance of a fundamental index with annual rebalancing, as proposed by Arnott, Hsu and Moore (2005), can be highly sensitive to the subjective choice of when to rebalance. For the year 2009, for example, we find that a fundamental index rebalanced every March outperformed...

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are commonly regarded as an efficient, low-cost alternative to actively managed mutual funds, yet their perceived superiority is largely anecdotal. We evaluate the performance of a comprehensive, survivorship bias-free sample of US equity ETFs following the same...