Superannuation Fund Performance and Fund Fees

Abstract

Superannuation fees have come under public scrutiny in recent years with the belief that many are set too high. Using a comprehensive dataset of Australian superannuation funds, we examine the relationship between investment fees and fund performance. We find that the most expensive funds produce significantly higher after-fee raw returns than the cheapest funds. However, the most expensive funds do not earn significantly higher benchmark-adjusted returns after asset allocation adjustment, after fees, than the least expensive funds. Furthermore, we do not observe a strong relationship between benchmark-adjusted fund performance and their investment fees. These findings suggest that retirement balances will not be worse off if superannuation investors are to hold the more expensive funds.

Keywords: Investment fees, Performance evaluation, Superannuation funds