Performance appraisal of international equity mutual funds

This study provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the performance of a large sample of 1,471 Canadian international equity mutual funds over the period 1988-2008. We find that the performance statistics are sensitive to the selected benchmark model and conditional specification. Fund selectivity underperformance is partially explained by higher expenses. Bootstrap tests reveal a substantial number of significantly skilled funds in the right tail of the cross-sectional distribution.