Analysis of closed real estate funds in Italy

In this paper, we examine closed real estate funds, comparing the Italian case with the international closed real estate fund market. We study whether the “public hand” has acted in an efficient market way to achieve return results in line with private competitors. In the last 10 years, international closed real estate funds have had an annual average of 0.5%. This result represents a very poor performance when compared with the returns offered by international bonds (5.6%) or international l equity markets (6.9%). This positive trend, however, is not followed by the closed real estate investment fund sponsored by the Italian government. On average, during the recent financial crisis, the returns of the international closed real estate funds in the euro area increased by more than 14 percentage points, while those of the Swiss franc area were about 1.5%.