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An analytical performance comparison of exchanged traded funds with index funds: 2002-2010.Abstract Exchanged Traded Funds (ETFs) have been gaining increasing popularity in the investment community as is evidenced by the high growth both in the number of ETFs and their net assets since 2000. As ETFs are in nature similar to index mutual funds, in this paper we examined if this growing demand for ETFs can be explained through their outperformance as compared to index mutual funds. We considered the population of all ETFs with inception dates prior to 2002 and then for each ETF found all the passive index mutual funds that had the same investment style as the selected ETF and had inception date prior to 2002. This lead to a sample of 230m paired matches for all the styles. Within each investment style we matched every ETF with all the passive index funds in that investment style and compared the performances of the matched pairs in terms of Sharp Ratios and risk adjusted buy and hold total returns for the period 200-2010. We then applied the Wilcoxon signed rank test to examine if ETFs had better performances than index mutual funds during the sample period. We conducted the test both within each style and for all the styles together. In terms of Sharpe Ratio, out of the 12 styles included in the sample, in 5 cases the conclusion was that ETFs outperformed index funds, for the 3 styles, U.S. Broad market, U.S large cap growth, and U.S. Reits index funds outperformed ETFs and for 4 styles there was statistically no significant difference between ETFs and index funds performances. Out of the 230 paired matches of all the styles, ETFs outperformed index mutual funds in 134 of the times in terms of Sharpe Ratio, however, the test of the hypothesis showed no statistically significant difference between ETFs and index funds performances in terms of Sharpe ratio. Break-down of the results for riskadjusted buy and hold total returns was slightly different from those for the Sharpe Ratio, though the overall conclusion was the same. For 5 of the styles index funds outperformed ETFs, for 3 styles ETFs outperformed index funds, and for 4 styles there was statistically no significant difference between the performances of the two. Out of the 230 paired matches of all the styles, ETFs outperformed index mutual funds in 125 of the times in terms of risk adjusted buy and hold total return, however, the test of hypothesis showed no statistically significant difference between ETFs and index funds performances in terms of risk adjusted buy and hold total return. These findings indicate there is statistically no significant difference between ETFs and passive index mutual funds performances at the fund level and investors' choice between the two is related to product characteristics and tax advantages.

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In this work, a general model for the gas permeation behavior of facilitated transport membranes (FTMs) has been developed. The importance of developing a clearer understanding of FTM permeation behavior by introducing a detailed two‐dimensional FTM model was demonstrated. This model accounts for the effects of partial pressure on permeance by considering the carrier saturation‐state phenomenon and reaction‐diffusion portions in FTMs. The model is based on a first order double‐step reaction mechanism with respect to the role of the concentration of zwitterion ions in the facilitated transport of CO2. It is shown here that the individual values of reaction constant rates and diffusion coefficients of components in the chemical reaction, which belong to the FTM condition, have been determined by the FTMs’ permeability and were not guessed or calculated. Overall, this work provides a method for the more reliable use of models to understand and design of FTMs, and to better comprehend the large and growing body of experimental data on these kinds of membranes. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.