Nobody can deny a simple empirical fact: higher fees are associated with lower returns, on average (Here is a great paper by Ken French on the costs of active investing). This finding, logically, leads investors to focus on low-cost solutions as opposed to high-cost solutions, all else equal. But do the rules apply to large professional investors? As the story goes, the large endowments and pensions have an edge due to their scale and access to talent. David Swensen... More