Emerging market mutual funds: Recent trends in performance, expenses, composition and growth

Emerging market mutual funds are a rapidly growing mutual fund category. This growth is most likely due to their impressive realized returns, although their returns may be quite volatile. This study reports on emerging market mutual funds' characteristics and performance relative to domestic and international equity mutual funds and also details the significant growth in these funds. We further consider the investment allocations of the three categories of funds among developing versus mature
markets. Our results suggest that the superior performance of emerging market mutual funds more than adequately compensates for their higher risk, and thus provides a sound justification for their rapid growth in recent years.