Market Concentration in the Polish Investment Fund Industry

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to determine the level of market concentration of the Polish investment fund industry in the period of 1998-2018 and to indicate the causes of its changes. Moreover, the intention of the study was to verify the hypothesis regarding competition on the market measured by the strength of an association between market positions of IFCs and the direction of the relationship. The study applied measures related to the concentration curve and certain special measures as well as the correlation coefficient to identify a change in the significance of the entities in the industry. It was established that the IFCs market in Poland was generally characterized by a moderate or relatively low level of market concentration. However, its degree altered noticeably over time. In general, the analyzed period abounded in external, market and law-related factors that could be viewed as determinants of market concentration. Furthermore, it was noted that, despite many new entities entering the market and constantly changing attractiveness of the products offered by IFCs, the investment fund industry was still heavily petrified, mainly due to the dominant role of some large and experienced IFCs

Keywords

• concentration
• competition
• investment fund company