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Mutual funds are the important financial institutions, which can play a crucial role in an economy by mobilizing small savings and investing them in the capital market, thus establishing a link between savings and investment market. The structure of mutual funds has changed after the Indian economy opened for the private participation. At the outset, the book provides an overview of financial sector reforms and its impacts on the changes in the structure and growth of mutual funds in India. One of the major attempts was to estimate competition among the mutual funds in India in the context of increasing participation of private and foreign mutual funds. The finding shows that concentration has declined and competition has increased in the mutual fund industry. The performance analysis was carried out and the indicators like Sharpe ratio and Treynor ratio show that only few schemes out perform compared to market portfolio. Findings shows that average returns of all the selected schemes are less than the market return. This in fact shows that increased competition among the funds could not provide better performance of all schemes in terms of return.

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Sumalatha B S, completed MPhil in Applied Economics from Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, Kerala. Currently doing PhD in Economics at Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. My research interest includes Financialisation and Development, Financial Markets, Commodity Trading and Speculation.

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