Active international mutual fund management; can managers neat the index?

Abstract

We examine the benefits of active international mutual fund management. Is there an advantage to active fund management over investing in index funds? Previous research has found that for domestic funds, active fund management can not outperform index funds. But there has been no clear conclusion as to active international mutual fund management. We utilize Morningstar Mutual Fund data to analyze five international mutual fund categories, and overall, for a sample of 831 funds with 4,835 annual return data points. We find the difference in mean return (index minus fund return) is negative for all fund categories, except for Europe funds. The difference is significant overall and for four of the five fund categories. The results from the multivariate regression show no relationship between total return and expense ratio, but there is a significant positive relationship between total return and turnover, and a significant positive relationship between total return and fund size (LN net assets). As opposed to domestic mutual funds, it appears to be beneficial to select actively managed international mutual funds over index funds.