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I would believe a similar effect would be observed in systems that tax reinvested dividends as "qualified" (meeting a certain holding period threshold, so taxed at a long-term capital gains rate rather than as short-term/ordinary income), or not at all (as with IRA/401(k)/ISA/superannuation retirement accounts).

There's another great industry unspoken: One would suppose that more volatile funds would have a higher propensity to trade (either reacting to or perhaps even exacerbating the volatility), which would drag on returns even further. I once met a fund manager who said he was unconcerned about institutional transaction costs because they were buried in the broker bid/ask spread and thus "out of his control"; I replied that they certainly were, as he could refrain from trading so much. Sigh.

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trading as much as he did. Sigh. [Note that my first reply was cut off, and I couldn't edit it for some reason ... sorry.]

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