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The purpose of this paper is to examine individual level property returns to see whether there is evidence of persistence in performance, i.e. a greater than expected probability of well (badly) performing properties continuing to perform well (badly) in subsequent periods.

The same methodology originally used in Young and Graff is applied, making the results directly comparable with those for the US and Australian markets. However, it uses a much larger database covering all UK commercial property data available in the Investment Property Databank (IPD) for the years 1981 to 2002 – as many as 216,758 individual property returns.

While the results of this study mimic the US and Australian results of greater persistence in the extreme first and fourth quartiles, they also evidence persistence in the moderate second and third quartiles, a notable departure from previous studies. Likewise patterns across property type, location, time, and holding period are remarkably similar.

The findings suggest that performance persistence is not a feature unique to particular markets, but instead may characterize most advanced real estate investment markets.

As well as extending previous research geographically, the paper explores possible reasons for such persistence, consideration of which leads to the conjecture that behaviors in the practice of institutional‐grade commercial real estate investment management may themselves be deeply rooted and persistent, and perhaps influenced for good or ill by agency effects.

This paper aims to study manipulation and performance persistence in equity mutual funds. To this end, Manipulation-Proof Performance Measure (MPPM) and Doubt Ratio, along with a number of current performance measures are used to evaluate the performance of equity mutual funds in Iran.

The authors investigate performance manipulation by 1) comparing the results of the MPPM with the current performance measures, 2) checking the Doubt Ratio to detect suspicious funds. Additionally, the authors investigate performance persistence by forming and evaluating portfolios of the equity mutual funds at several time horizons.

The authors conclude that there is no evidence of performance manipulation in the equity mutual funds. Additionally, when comparing the performance of the upper (top) tertile portfolios and the lower tertile portfolios, in all of the studied 1, 3, 6 and 12-month horizons, the authors find performance persistence in the equity mutual funds.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first study to investigate the performance manipulation in the Iranian equity mutual funds, and also is the first study in Iran that uses the MPPM and the Doubt Ratio in addition to a number of current performance measures to investigate the performance persistence in the equity mutual funds at several time horizons.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the return performance and persistence of ethical and conventional mutual funds during two extreme events, the Asian and the global financial crises under Shariah constraints.

The overall sample comprises of 129 Islamic mutual funds (IMFs) and 350 conventional mutual funds (CMFs) in Malaysia, and the average monthly data cover two periods of market cycles, before and during a financial crisis. The net of all expenses data is obtained from the Morningstar Database. This study employs various market risk-adjusted performance measures (ratios) to estimate the funds’ overall performance during the crises, and then it uses CAPM model to estimate the parameters via panel data approach. Moreover, paper employs the two persistence performance measures on IMFs and CMFs through contingency tables. It tests for the performance persistence effects for IMFs, CMFs using repeat winner and the cross-product ratio (CPR) tests proposed by Malkiel (1995) and Brown and Goetzmann (1995), respectively.

The main findings of the paper are: on average, both funds IMF and the CMF outperform the market return during the entire sample period; none of the funds is better than the “others” during the financial crises and the pre-crisis periods; the ethical fund – IMF outperforms the CMF over the study period. This outcome also indicates that ethical funds are more persistent especially during and the pre-crisis AFC and the GFC periods.

The finding of this study is limited to only Malaysian data because the objective was to guideline investors and market players in Malaysia to prefer investing in Islamic ethical funds to diversify their investment portfolio.

Cautions to use existing ratio measures and CAPM model rather persistence measures may be used with existing methodologies in light of extreme events which influenced investor decision making for better returns at lower risks.

A class of ethical funds consists of religious sustainable, socially responsible and impact-investing (SRI) funds but Shariah implications of halal investment must be observed to avoid prohibited practices within the class of SRI funds.

The work done in this paper are original in the sense that the authors employed various ratios to measure fund performance in conjunction with CAPM model and then tested for two persistence performance measures; the repeat winner and CPR tests.

The purpose of this paper is to find whether Chinese equity funds outperform the market and do Chinese fund managers possess positive market timing ability. This study also aims to investigate whether well-performing (worst) funds of last year continue to perform well (worst) in the following year.

Capital Asset Pricing Model and Carhart four-factor model are used for performance analysis, whereas for analyzing market timing ability, the Treynor and Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson and Merton (1981) models are applied. To investigate persistence in the performance of Chinese equity funds, all equity funds are divided, on the basis of performance in the past 12 months, into three equally weighted groups (high, middle and low) and then observed for next 12 months. After that, groups are again rebalanced according to their performance. This study uses a panel regression model for analysis.

Chinese equity funds are successful in providing higher than market returns, and fund managers possess positive market timing ability. The authors find that Chinese equity funds do not show persistence in performance as witnessed in developed markets. Well-performing funds (worst funds) of last year do not continue to provide higher (lower) return in the following year. Moreover, the authors detect positive relationship of fund size, age and expense ratio with the fund’s performance. Overall results suggest that emerging market equity funds show better performance than that of developed markets.

Investors are better off if they invest in equity funds instead of index funds, as results illustrate that equity funds outperformed the market. Further, the strategy of buying well-performing funds of last year and selling poorly performing funds of last year does not look very attractive in China. This study helps investors to understand the Chinese managed funds industry, and such an understanding is also helpful for fund managers and asset management companies who use performance information in marketing strategies.

This is the first study to investigate the performance persistence in Chinese equity funds and also contributes to the literature about the performance and market timing ability of equity funds. The study takes the sample of 520 equity funds for the period from 2004 to 2014, which includes a period of financial crisis of 2008.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of Greek equity mutual funds for the period 2012-2016, analyzing further the selectivity and market timing ability, and short-term performance persistence for the period 2015-2016.

Utilizing a survivorship-bias-controlled sample of 25 funds and daily data, the authors use single-index (Jensen, 1968) and multi-factor (Carhart, 1997) models to evaluate risk-adjusted returns using the General Index of Athens Stock Exchange as a benchmark. The Treynor-Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson-Merton (1981) models are used to assess the stock selection and market timing abilities of fund managers. In order to investigate short-term performance persistence, the authors implement a variety of parametric (Bollen and Busse, 2005) and nonparametric tests (Malkiel, 1995; Brown and Goetzmann, 1995; Kahn and Rudd, 1995).

Results show that the funds underperformed the General Index, mainly due to the managers’ market timing inability. Furthermore, weak evidence for short-term performance persistence has been documented.

Checking for performance persistence, it was impossible to rank funds and form deciles according to their estimated abnormal returns, as in Bollen and Busse (2005), due to the small number of mutual funds operating in Greece.

Empirical studies regarding the performance of Greek equity mutual funds are still limited. Therefore, this paper intends to fill this gap by providing further evidence of performance evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of 191 equity unit trusts in an emerging market, South Africa over the period from February 2006 to January 2016, which captures different market conditions (pre-global financial crisis, crisis and recovery periods). Besides testing for managerial ability, both cross-sectional regression and the non-parametric rank correlation test are used to test whether the performance generated by unit trusts does persist.

To evaluate the managerial ability of portfolio managers, two widely used methods, the Treynor-Mazuy (1966) model and Henriksson-Merton (1981) model, are employed. Both models test whether portfolio managers have stock selection and market timing ability. The cross-sectional regression and the rank correlation test are implemented which account for both parametric and non-parametric approaches of persistence testing, respectively.

Weak evidence of stock selection as well as market timing ability was found. Moreover, most of the unit trusts are reported to have insignificant coefficients. When testing for performance persistence using returns, the Sharpe ratio and the Sortino ratio as performance metrics, the overall results also revealed weak evidence of persistence that is equally spread across winning and losing funds.

While research on unit trusts’ performance has been conducted in emerging economies, little has been done in testing for managerial ability in general and in South Africa in particular. Moreover, the research tends to focus more on one class – Equity General. This paper extends the performance literature by testing whether portfolio managers in the South African equity unit trusts industry have stock selection and market timing ability.

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures on firms' profitability and its persistence.

The study has been conducted for listed firms operating in India from 2008 to 2017. Content analysis has been utilized to estimate the CSR disclosures score. Further, dynamic panel regression has been utilized to estimate the relationship between CSR disclosures and profit persistence.

The results confirm positive profit persistence for Indian companies. The results further show that different dimensions of CSR disclosure have differential impact on firms' profitability. CSR dimensions concerning total community development and product-related disclosures have a positive relationship, whereas dimensions related to environmental and customer-related disclosures have a negative relationship with financial performance. The results also indicate that CSR disclosures are significantly related to profit persistence.

The study is first of its kind that analyzes the impact of CSR disclosure on profit persistence for Indian companies. The results can provide useful implications for managers and regulators in terms of formulation of overall CSR policies.

This paper evaluates the risk-adjusted returns, selectivity, market timing skills and persistence of the performance of Nigerian pension funds.

Annual return data of 23 pension funds that operated in Nigeria between 2018 and 2022 were obtained from the National Pension Commission (PenCom). Risk-adjusted return was appraised using the Treynor ratio, Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha, while the Treynor–Mazuy and Henriksson–Merton multiple regression models were applied to decompose selective and timing skills. Performance persistence was assessed using the contingency table and rank correlation models.

Evidence shows that pension funds deliver excess risk-adjusted returns and exhibit selective skills. However, the evidence does not support the presence of timing skills, and there is overwhelming evidence that good (bad) performance does not repeat.

An evaluation of the investment performance of pension funds is crucial for ensuring the financial stability of retirees, maintaining economic stability and making informed investment decisions. It serves the interests of pensioners, pension fund managers, regulators and the broader economy. Our evidence that pension funds generate positive excess returns is a departure from most of the literature on managed funds. We recommend that more Nigerians should leverage the pension fund industry to grow their wealth and prepare for retirement.

This study, to our knowledge, is the first to appraise all the key facets of the investment performance of pension funds in the Nigerian context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) on the performance of UK investment closed-end trust funds with domestic equity focus using Carhart’s Four-Factor model.

The paper is based on the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which argues that all available information is already included in the price of assets, and therefore, investors cannot beat the market or generate abnormal returns.

The results show that on average, UK investment trusts neither do generate abnormal returns, nor is their performance persistent. This paper provides empirical evidence to support the efficient market hypotheses and provides proof that the adoption of IFRS has, on average, a decreasing impact on the excess returns generated by UK investment trusts.

The findings of this paper have business policy implications for investment trust in the UK.

This study examined the students' academic performance through psychological capital, academic engagement and academic persistence. It also investigated the function of psychological capital in mediating the relationship between academic engagement, persistence and performance.

The study utilized a quantitative method and structural equation modeling using PLS-SEM version 3. A total of 900 questionnaires were issued to Chinese university students, and 814 data were analyzed.

Findings suggest that academic engagement and persistence significantly and positively impact psychological capital. Psychological capital is also mediated between academic engagement, persistence and performance. Additionally, the study made several recommendations for upcoming researchers and industry professionals.

Analyzing the pupils' academic achievement after COVID-19 reopening as it indicates their attention and engagement in the study. Although previous studies explored students' academic performance regarding the post-COVID effect, the role of psychological capital and engagement in academia in the study has been studied in a post-COVID context.