The influence of the portfolio management's fee structure to its performance

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the Luxembourg mutual fund market and the link between its performance and several variables like the incentive fee, the front loads and deferred loads, the age and the size of the fund. This study shows that incentive fees may improve the moral hazard between investors and managers, but the fee is not offset by the added value. Furthermore, we show that the added risk created by the incentive effect is on average not enough compensated with extra return. For the load charges, we do not find significant relations. But we do find that large funds benefit from economies of scales and that younger funds outperform older ones.