A Comparison between the European and the U.S. Mutual Fund Industry

Abstract

In this study we analyze the development and performance of the European mutual fund industry and compare it with the industry in the United States, using the traditional structure-conduct-performance (SCP) paradigm. We find that Europe is still lagging the American mutual fund industry when it comes to total asset size, average fund size, and market importance. Furthermore, it appears that a few large domestic fund groups dominate the mutual fund markets in the individual European countries. The performance of domestic equity funds is tested using a data set containing the main European countries and the United States. The most striking results of these performance tests are the relative poor performance of U.S. funds, compared to the European funds, and the out-performance of small cap mutual funds.