Regulatory Environment and Pension Investment Performance

Using the most comprehensive publicly available data to-date, we study the effect of three aspects of pension regulation (namely quantitative investment restrictions, minimum return or benefit guarantee, and the type of supervising authority) on risk-adjusted funded pension performance in 27 countries. Regulatory strictness’ influence on the Sharpe ratio of investment return depends on a country’s level of economic development. In emerging market economies, existence of quantitative investment restrictions across asset classes adversely affects risk-adjusted returns. This impact is more severe if higher investment limits are imposed on equities and foreign assets, as opposed to on bonds. Having a minimum benefit or return guarantee, as well as having a specialized supervising authority has no statistically significant effect on the risk-adjusted returns regardless of economic development.