Summary: | 博士 === 元智大學 === 財務金融學系 === 98 === This thesis consists of two essays relating to the two important aspects of real estate mutual fund. The first essay is “International Real Estate Mutual Fund Performance- Diversification or Costly Information”, and the second essay is “Managerial Experience, Board of Director, and Agency Conflict: Evidence from Real Estate Mutual Funds”.
The first study examines international real estate mutual funds from three dimensions. First, this study examines whether investors can benefit from investing in international real estate mutual funds. Second, this study investigates whether managers of international real estate mutual funds posses market timing ability. Finally, this study explores the determinants of international real estate mutual fund flows. The results show that international real estate mutual funds perform better and are less risky than domestic real estate mutual funds. Investors could benefit from investing in international real estate mutual funds. Although the result also indicates that managers of international mutual funds do not have market timing ability, they do have superior stock selection ability. Finally, the finding shows that fund flows are driven by investors’ return-chasing behaviors and are affected by subprime mortgage crisis.
The second study takes the board structure variables into account and examines the agency conflict through the viewpoint of managerial experience by several aspects. First, this study examines whether management companies charge higher management fees when they hire experienced managers. Second, this study investigates whether experienced managers are associated with the superiority of fund performance. Third, this study explores whether experienced managers are not likely to be replaced when fund performance is inferior. Besides, this study also examines the issue of whether managerial experience is proxy for managerial skill. The result shows that management companies do not charge higher management fees when they hire experienced fund managers. As for board structure, this study does not find any evidence that board size is related to management fees, but find that the higher the percentage of independent directors, the lower management fees. The result also indicates that the managerial experience and fund board variables have no influence on the fund performance. Regardless of allowance of board structure variables, this study also finds no evidence that funds managed by experienced managers are more likely to be replaced if fund performance is inferior. As for the relationship between managerial experience and managerial skill, the result shows that managerial experience is irrelevant to the managerial skill. To put all the empirical results together, this study concludes that the agency conflict can not be alleviated if shareholders invest the funds managed by experienced managers.
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