Great piece!

Dave Lafferty at Natixis recently expressed similar ideas in a white paper published by the Active Managers Council, tilted "A More Balanced Narrative: Setting the Record Straight on Active Management" (available at activemanagers dot com).

For an extensive review of the academic research on drivers of performance, it's worth looking at the fourth quarter issue of the Financial Analysts Journal. In an article titled "Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Active Management," Martijn Cremers, Jon Fulkerson and Tim Riley provide a summary of the literature.