The performance of local versus foreign mutual fund managers

In this paper we examine the performance of US equity funds (locals) versus UK equity funds (foreigners) also investing in the US equity market. Based on informational disadvantages one would expect the UK funds to under-perform the US funds, especially in the research-intensive small company market. After controlling for tax treatment, fund objectives, investment style and time-variation in betas, we do not find evidence for this. In the small company segment we even find a slight out-performance for UK funds compared to US funds. Finally we observe a home bias in the UK portfolios, which is partly attributable to UK funds investing in cross-listed stocks in the USA.