The Black Box of Mutual Fund Fees

This paper re-examines the determinants of mutual fund fees paid by mutual fund shareholders for management costs and other expenses. There are two novelties with respect to previous studies. First, each type of fee is explained separately. Second, the paper employs a new dataset consisting of Spanish mutual funds, making it the second paper to study mutual fund fees outside the US market. Furthermore, the Spanish market has three interesting characteristics: (i) both distribution and management are highly dominated by banks and savings banks, which points towards potential conflicts of interest; (ii) Spanish mutual fund law imposes caps on all types of fees; and (iii) Spain ranks first in terms of average mutual fund fees among similar countries. We find significant differences in mutual fund fees not explained by the fund’s investment objective. For instance, management companies owned by banks and savings banks charge higher management fees and redemption fees to nonguaranteed funds. Also, investors in older non-guaranteed funds and non-guaranteed funds with a lower average investment are more likely to end up paying higher management fees. Moreover, there is clear evidence that some mutual funds enjoy better conditions from custodial institutions than others. In contrast to evidence from the US market, larger funds are not associated with lower fees, but with higher custody fees for guaranteed funds and higher redemption fees for both types of funds. Finally, fee-setting by mutual funds is not related to fund before-fee performance.

Energy Audit for an Old Industrial Building in Gävle

(English)The Swedish industrial sector has overcome the oil crisis and has maintained the energy use constant even though the production has grown. This has been achieved thanks to the development of several energy policies, by the Swedish government, towards the 2020 goals. This thesis carries on this path and performs an energy audit for an old industrial building in Gävle (Sweden) in order to propose different energy efficiency measures to use less energy while maintaining the thermal comfort. The building is in quite a bad shape and some of the areas are unused making them a waste of money. By means of the invoices provided by different companies, the information from the staff and some measures that have been carried out in-situ, the energy balance has been calculated from where conclusions have been drawn. Although it is an industrial building, the study is not going to be focused in the industrial process but in the building’s envelope and support processes, since the unit combines both production and office areas. Therefore, the energy balance is divided in energy supplies (district heating, free heating and sun irradiation) and energy losses (transmission, ventilation hot tap water and infiltrations). The results show that the most important supply is that of the DH whereas the most important losses are the transmission and infiltration. Thus, the measures proposed are focused on the reduction of this relevant parameters. The most important measures are the renovation of the windows, heating systems valves and the ventilation. The glazing of the dwelling is old and some of it is broken accounting for quite a large amount of the losses. The radiator valves are not properly working and there does not exist any temperature control. Therefore the installation of thermostatic valves turns out to be a must. Moreover, some part of the building has no mechanical ventilation but conserves the ducts. These could be utilized if they are connected to the workshop’s ventilation which is capable of generating sufficient flow for the entire building. Finally, although other measures could also be carried out, the ones proposed appear to be the essential ones. A further analysis should be carried out in order to analyze the payback time or investment capability of the company so as to decide between one measure or another. A market study for possible new tenants for the unused parts of the building is also advisable.