This paper presents a new method to examine the performance evaluation of mutual funds in incomplete markets. Based on the no arbitrage condition, we develop bounds on admissible performance measures. We suggest new ways of ranking mutual funds and provide a diagnostic instrument for evaluating the admissibility of candidate performance measures. Using monthly data from 1984 to 1997, we show th...

This paper tackles the problem of the presence of negative average rates of returns in the evaluation of the performance of mutual funds using a DEA approach. We present some extensions of DEA models for the evaluation of the performance of mutual funds that enable to compute the performance measure also in the presence of negative rates of returns. These extensions regard a model that can be u...

This study examines the performance of Australian investment management organisations with direct reference to their specific characteristics and strategies employed. Using a unique information source, performance is evaluated for actively managed institutional balanced funds, Australian share funds and Australian bond funds. For balanced mandates, performance is evaluated with respect to the i...

We estimate investment style dispersions for individual actively managed equity mutual funds, which describe how widely fund investments are distributed around the core fund style along the dimensions of size, book-to-market, and momentum, respectively. We find that high style dispersions, especially that along the size dimension, are associated with superior fund performance, consistent with h...

This work discusses investment funds in Croatia, with a particular emphasis on openend investment funds. After a short review of the development of the funds, the perception of the funds is analysed, as are the trends in total assets and in average yields. The degree of concentration of open-end investment funds is shown with statistical measures of concentration (the Gini Coefficient, the Lore...

Existing literature has found no evidence of market-timing ability by mutual funds using tests based on fund returns. This paper proposes alternative market-timing tests based on observed fund holdings. The holdings-based measures are shown to be more powerful than the return-based measures, and are not subject to “artificial timing” bias. Applying the holdings-based tests, we find strong evide...