The objectives of the present study are to examine the structure of the mutual fund industry in India and to analyze the state of competition among all the mutual funds along with between sector competition and within sector competition. The mutual fund industry in India is relatively adolescent compared to that of developed countries. Initially the industry was a state monopoly of Unit Trust of India. Later on, a few public sector institutions were allowed to operate. After 1993, when the industry was opened for the private sector, only then a real environment was created for the competition in the industry. In this study, the Normalized Herfindal-Hirshman Index of concentration was used to estimate the levels of competition among the mutual funds. The levels of competition and their trends have been obtained for the period March, 2003 to March, 2009. This study found overall mutual fund industry, different sectors of the mutual funds and funds within Private Joint Venture Indian Dominated highly competitive; funds within Private Joint Venture Foreign Dominated were found most of the times moderately competitive and funds within Bank-Institution, Private Sector Indian and Private Sector Foreign were found concentrated. A lack of trend of competition was observed in the overall industry and within Private Joint Venture Foreign Dominated in India. A decreasing trend of competition was observed among different sectors and within Private Sector Indian; and an increasing trend was found within Bank-Institution, Private Sector Foreign and Private Joint Venture Indian Dominated during the period.
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