International Asset Allocation with Time-Varying Investment Opportunities

This paper analyzes the international equity holdings of a large panel of U.K. pension funds. We model portfolio weights as a function of time-varying conditional moments and find that a substantial part of the evolution in portfolio weights is explained by time-varying conditional expected returns, volatilities, and covariances with domestic equity returns. Estimates of returns from international market timing suggest a net loss of 0.2% per annum for the average fund.