Italian Open End Mutual Fund Costs

Abstract

We investigate the costs investors incur when they hold shares of Italian open end mutual funds. The overall explicit cost can range from less than 50 to well over 250 basis points in terms of assets under management. Nevertheless, mutual funds investors seem to be almost unaware of the importance of costs and tend to focus mainly on the net return when making their investment decisions. We measure the overall costs of a large sample of mutual funds managed by Italian intermediaries in the period 2000-2003 and also evaluate the determinants of cost efficiencies for the period 2000-2003.mutual fund expenses, total expense ratio, mutual fund transaction costs, economies of scale