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This paper describes the experience of the mutual evaluations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) that have been carried out since 1992. It focuses on the mutual evaluation process, which is one of the cornerstones of the FATF and has proven to be the most successful element of its activities. The purpose of the mutual evaluation process is to provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of the extent to which the country in question has moved forward in implementing the 40 Recommendations — the effective measures to counter money laundering and to highlight areas in which further progress may still be required.

To review the reported compliance levels of third round mutual evaluations with a view to determining any change or differences in compliance levels for Financial Action Task Force (FATF) member countries following the updating of FATF's Forty Recommendations in 2003 and the introduction of the Nine Special Recommendations relating to the financing of terrorism.

A comparison of pre‐ and post‐2003 compliance with the FATF's Forty Recommendations and Nine Special Recommendations is made using both self‐assessment and mutual assessment data.

There are significant differences in compliance levels pre and post 2003. Since, the FATF updated their Forty Recommendations in 2003 compliance with those Recommendations has declined. With regard to the Nine Special Recommendations which have not changed since their introduction there is a significant difference between self‐assessment compliance levels in 2003 and compliance determined using independent mutual evaluations, casting doubt on the value of self assessment.

In using an analytical approach it has been necessary to put numerical values on compliance levels used by the FATF. Given that these are very broad, substituting a single value for each compliance level will provide only a crude measure of compliance for comparisons to be made. The results should therefore be used as a guide to the ranking and compliance of countries rather than some exact measurement of compliance.

The value of self assessment by FATF members should be re‐evaluated.

Publication of the third round of FATF mutual evaluations provides an opportunity, not previously available, to analyse the compliance levels amongst FATF members.

The purpose of this paper is to consider compromise solutions of multiple attribute decision-making methods (TOPSIS, VIKOR, and similarity-based approach) in order to evaluate and rank mutual funds and to compare the capabilities of different approaches based on the different traditional indices of mutual funds assessment. In addition, a new algorithm for ranking mutual funds was proposed subsequently.

In this research, three groups of indices including general, risk-modified performance evaluation, and risk-modified performance evaluation indices using semivariance were used in the mutual funds assessment, which led to the comparison between selected mutual funds, using three mentioned methods and three different groups of criteria. The results of this comparison were compiled and synthesized with linear assignment method. At the end, an algorithm for decision making and investing in mutual funds for professional and unprofessional investors was proposed.

Using different methods and different criteria proved that the results of similarity-based approach as a MADM technique have the ability to rank and evaluate mutual funds regardless of the criteria used compared to TOPSIS and VIKOR. Furthermore, the authors propose the algorithm of this research as a new model of mutual funds evaluation which considers a wide range of variables with respect to amateur and professional points of view.

The originality of this paper is threefold: first, different criteria were considered to make the evaluation more comprehensive. Second, four different approaches were used to make the results more authentic. Third, a holistic algorithm with its implication was proposed.

This paper tries to find how investors evaluate mutual fund performance, not only based on both quantitative but also qualitative criteria.

This paper adopts the modified Delphi method and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to design an assessment method for evaluating mutual fund performance.

The most important criteria of mutual fund performance should be “mutual fund style,” following is “market investment environment.” This result indicates investors' focus when they evaluate the mutual fund performance.

The AHP assumes the criteria are independent between each other. However, in many real cases, the criteria to evaluate the funds' performance may not be independent. Therefore, the authors recommend correlation between each criterion can be considered in the future research.

When making investment decisions, investors should be more concentrate on gathering information of mutual fund style. As for mutual fund issuers, they could also leverage these results to communicate with their clients in more efficient way.

This study presents a framework of assessable mutual fund performance where the AHP were employed for finding the both tangible and intangible key criteria of performance evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the modified measures of risk-adjusted performance evaluation of Malaysian mutual funds using the downside risk concepts, and promote the ability of managers and investors in making logical decisions under the market asymmetry condition.

This study focusses on the performance evaluation of Malaysian mutual funds using eight modified measures of Sharpe, Treynor, M2, Jensen’s α, information ratio (IR), MSR, SPI, and leverage factor. These modified measures use the downside systematic risk and semi-standard deviation instead of systematic risk and conventional standard deviation, respectively, to evaluate the performance of Malaysian mutual funds over the period 2000-2011.

The results indicate that the conventional measures of performance evaluation do not have a crucial influence on the relative evaluation of mutual funds. Three modified measures of Sharpe, Treynor, and M2 have a high correlation with the conventional Sharpe measure and can be used instead of the conventional Sharpe measure. Since, two modified measures of Treynor and M2 display a high rank correlation coefficient with the conventional Treynor measure, they can be replaced with this traditional measure. In addition, two modified IR and MSR measures along with the modified SPI and conventional SPI show very high rank correlation coefficients in relation to each other. The results also document a modified leverage factor less than one for all funds. It can be concluded that the strategy of un-levering the investor’s holding must be followed.

The empirical evidence of this study can be utilized as inputs in the process of decision-making by different types of investors who are interested in participating especially in Malaysian stock market and generally in global stock market under the market asymmetry condition.

The contribution of this study is to modify five measures of M2, IR, MSR, FPI, and leverage factor in the downside risk framework which is a work on a rather under-researched area.

The purpose of this paper is to appraise the risk‐adjusted performance of international mutual funds using measures generated by the optimized variance (OV), and to promote ability of portfolio managers and investors in making logical decisions.

This study appraises the performance of 65 international mutual funds via the optimized risk‐adjusted measures during monthly period of 2001‐2010. Using 65 linear programming models, the OV is calculated to optimize the standard deviation of any funds. Then, another model is run to get the OV of market index. Consequently, seven optimized performance measures namely Treynor, Sharpe, Jensen's alpha, M‐squared, information ratio (IR), MSR, and FPI along with the optimized leverage factor are proposed to evaluate the performance of these mutual funds. Finally, the optimized measures are used to evaluate the funds during pre and post‐crisis periods in order to compare the funds' performance over the crisis periods.

The empirical evidence detects which OV, as measured by the Markowitz's linear programming model, is an important determinant in the performance evaluation measures. Using OV statistic and also its standard deviation, this paper shows that new optimized measures are mostly over‐performed rather than the benchmark index; in addition these optimized measures have close correlation with the conventional performance measures. The evidence shows that the average of the optimized measures during crisis has the lowest performance in comparison with other research periods. The results therefore highlight the importance of using the new optimized measures along with the conventional measures in the evaluation of mutual funds' performance.

It can be worthwhile to compare the optimized measure and also the conventional measures in identifying their superior measures.

The result of this study can be directly used as initial data to make decision by investors and portfolio managers who are seeking the possibility of participating in the global stock market through international mutual funds.

This paper is one of the first studies that optimizes the variance of return for any fund to suggest four optimized measures of Sharpe, IR, MSR, and FPI, and then proposes a new linear programming model to get OV of market index in introducing four optimized new measures of Treynor, M‐square, Jensen's alpha, and leverage factor.

The purpose of this paper is to perform a relative assessment of performance benchmarks based on alternative asset pricing models to evaluate performance of mutual funds and suggest the best approach in Indian context.

Sample of 237 open-ended Indian equity (growth) schemes from April 2003 to March 2013 is used. Both unconditional and conditional versions of eight performance models are employed, namely, Jensen (1968) measure, three-moment asset pricing model, four-moment asset pricing model, Fama and French (1993) three-factor model, Carhart (1997) four-factor model, Elton et al. (1999) five-index model, Fama and French (2015) five-factor model and firm quality five-factor model.

Conditional version of Carhart (1997) model is found to be the most appropriate performance benchmark in the Indian context. Success of conditional models over unconditional models highlights that fund managers dynamically manage their portfolios.

A significant α generated over and above the return estimated using Carhart’s (1997) model reflects true stock-picking skills of fund managers and it is, therefore, worth paying an active management fee. Stock exchanges and credit rating agencies in India should construct indices incorporating size, value and momentum factors to be used for purpose of benchmarking.

The study adds new evidence as to applicability of established asset pricing models as performance benchmarks in emerging market India. It examines role of higher order moments in explaining mutual fund returns which is an under researched area.

The paper aims to examine the performance of Spanish mutual funds between 1999 and 2003.

The methodolgy uses the stochastic discount factor (SDF) framework across a variety of models developed in the recent asset pricing literature. This approach is a fairly recent innovation in the evaluation of investment performance.

The present work complements the research of Farnworth et al. and Fletcher and Forbes, adding a new issue to the SDF, the third co‐moment of asset returns. Recent asset pricing studies show the relevance of the component of an asset's skewness related to the market portfolio's skewness, the coskewness, and how it helps to explain the time‐variation of ex‐ante market risk premiums. It is found that the effects of adding coskewness to evaluate the performance is significant even when factors based on size, book‐to‐market and momentum are included.

The omission of a coskewness factor may lead to erroneous evaluations of a fund's performance, and therefore, issues such as the persistence of performance should be revised.

This paper explores, for the first time, the effects of incorporating a coskewness factor in the analysis of investment performance, both in an unconditional and a conditional framework using SDF models.

Assesses the 1995‐1998 performance of 17 equity mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market, explains the calculations involved and reviews relevant research. Ranks the funds by daily, weekly, monthly and total return for the period and compares them with the general Athens Stock Exchange index. Goes on to rank them by total risk, coefficient of variation and systematic risk before applying Treynor’s index, Sharpe’s index and Jensen’s approach. Presents the results in detail and summarizes the main findings.