AUDIO

Online registration for this event is closed. Walk-in registrations will be accepted.

Mutual funds have become the investment of choice for millions of Americans, with over $10 trillion in assets currently under management. A significant portion of these assets is used to save for retirement, and small variations in fees and expenses can, over time, substantially reduce the value of investors’ portfolios. A sound regulatory policy would encourage the lowest costs for investors. For the last forty years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has attempted to achieve this result by requiring fund boards to include a larger proportion of independent directors and encouraging boards to press advisers for reduced fees and expenses. Yet the industry, which consists of dozens of fund families and thousands of funds, still exhibits a wide disparity in costs to investors that is not characteristic of a price-competitive market.

In their new book, Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds (AEI Press, 2007), Peter J. Wallison of AEI and Robert E. Litan of the Brookings Institution argue that the SEC’s approach has been wrong and indeed counterproductive--and that the only way to drive down the costs for investors is to encourage price competition among mutual fund advisers. To achieve this result, they propose a new and optional structure for the mutual fund industry which will be outlined and discussed at this conference.

This is the final event in a continuing series on mutual fund regulation entitled “Is There a Better Way to Regulate Mutual Funds?”