INVESTMENT PERFORMANCE OF INTERNATIONAL MUTUAL FUNDS

In this paper we add several new perspectives to the growing body of e mpirical evidence on the investment performance of international mutua l funds by applying a pooled cross-sectional/time-series regression me thodology to a large data base over an extended period. Risk-adjusted and unadjusted investment returns are not related to whether a fund is load or no-load, and asset size, expense ratios, and turnover rates a re not related to investment performance. We find no reward for paying a load fee when investing in mutual funds. It is noteworthy that perf ormance is not affected by fund size, given the explosive growth of in ternational mutual funds.