The Strategic Setting Of Real Estate Mutual Fund Expense Ratios

Abstract

Real estate mutual fund expense ratios are analyzed using panel data comprising 1,130 observations. The results show that expense ratio is inversely related to share class assets, fund family size, and fund age. Conversely, the expense ratio is positively related to larger funds and fund families with superior performance. This result is interesting because individual fund classes with favorable performance are associated with lower expense ratios. The results are robust to common estimation methodologies.