• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.31-64
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• 2009

This paper evaluates the role of fund distributors and the appropriateness of sales fees in funds by the empirical analysis of Korean equity funds. The empirical results are summarized as follows. First, this paper shows that the funds with higher sales fees do not have better performance. Rather, the higher sales fees cause the returns of funds to decrease in Korean equity funds. Second, it is not confirmed that both banks and securities firms, as fund distributors, contribute to the better performance of funds. Especially, the banks gave more negative influence on the performance of funds by imposing higher sales fees in funds than the securities firms. The empirical results suggest that the sales fees of funds are unduly imposed in comparison to the function of fund distributors and therefore, the structure of fund fees should be improved for the benefit of fund investors.