Abstract

This paper investigates how mutual fund managers’ characteristics influence their funds performance. The majority of mutual funds available to Taiwan investors are actively managed. Apparently, investors will expect the active equity fund managers to provide better performance than passive managers do. We apply logistic regression, which adopt the performance of Polaris Taiwan Top 50 Tracker Fund (TTT) as the benchmark, to examine the relationship between fund managers’ characteristics and fund performance. The results show that fund size and the fund manager’s gender, seniority, and educational background significantly influence fund performance. All else equal, investors can expect higher odds for their fund performance beating TTT if their funds are managed by a female or a senior fund manager, or by a manager graduated from domestic public college or from overseas college.

Key words: Polaris Taiwan top 50 tracker fund, logistic regression, mutual fund performance, mutual fund manager.