The impact of minimum investment barriers on hedge funds: Are retail investors getting the short end of performance

Using paired tests of high and low minimum investment group funds on several performance measures for hedge funds and funds-of-funds from 1991-2005, we find that funds imposing a higher entry fee requirement on their investors produce significantly better performance both on a raw basis and a risk-adjusted basis. Differences in the performance of the high and low entry fee funds are found to be less significant economically and statistically in later years, suggesting a diminishing gap in performance differences. We also find that there is considerably more cross-sectional dispersion in investing in funds with lower minimum investment levels, which indicates a much higher level of fund selection risk for undiversified investors desiring investment in funds with low entry fee barriers.