Over the period from 1990-1998, boutique families are better performers. This link between specialization and performance suggests that the tenets of industrial organization are applicable to investment management.
Expenses offer insight into the performance differences.
Boutique families have abnormally low expenses relative to cafeteria families. Efficiency may exist from the perspective of total investor cost, however, if cafeteria families offer investors search economies. Click here to download paper as a pdf file.