Measuring the financial efficiencies of mutual funds in emerging markets has played an important role in finance literature. Charnes et al. (1978) advocated Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a valuable mathematical programming technique, which is used to measure the technical, pure and scale efficiencies of decision making units. The general form of DEA is the CCR model that depends on the assumption of constant returns to scale. Subsequently, Banker et al. (1984) developed an alternative DEA model which includes a variable returns to scale approach. The aim of this study is to measure and compare the financial efficiencies of Turkish securities and pension funds in the 2006–2007 period. In this respect, 36 securities mutual funds (SMFs) and 41 pension mutual funds (PMFs) have been evaluated comparatively according to classical portfolio performance measures and DEA models. Results from performance indices and DEA models reveal that PMFs have higher portfolio performances and financial efficiencies than SMFs in the 2006–2007 period. However, SMFs and PMFs have shown considerable increases in efficiency in the 2006–2007 period according to CCR and BCC models. Of the 77 funds studied, 23 funds in 2007 and 20 funds in 2006 demonstrated scale efficiency. Furthermore, the input ratios should be considerably improved for 2006 and 2007. But, mostly the output values of the funds were found to have remained unchanged in the case of PMFs and SMFs in 2007. The output ratios for 2006 should be considerably improved, especially in the case of SMFs. Finally, the DEA method is evaluated as a substantial quantitative tool for investors in analysing the financial efficiencies of funds in the capital markets.
Do Mutual Funds Have Decreasing Returns to Scale? Evidence from Fund Mergers