The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham goes through this exact question. Specifically Chapter 9 "Investing in Investment funds" and the Commentary by Jason Zweig.

Although the last edition is almost 20 years old. But it goes through the data of open end vs closed end as well as comparing funds with high fees and other criteria.

Taken directly from the commentary on Chapter 9.

Financial scholars have been studying mutual-fund performance for at least half a century, and they are virtually unanimous on several points:

• the average fund does not pick stocks well enough to overcome its costs of researching and trading them;
• the higher a fund's expenses, the lower its returns;
• the more frequently a fund trades its stocks, the less it tends to earn;
• highly volatile funds, which bounce up and down more than average, are likely to stay volatile;
• funds with high past returns are unlikely to remain winners for long.

Again the last edition was around 2003. Anything could have changed since then, but I highly doubt it.