Does the Endowment Model still work? Judging by large endowments' steady outperformance of a 70% global stock/30% US bond index, THE ANSWER IS YES. Versus a 60% US stock/40% US bond index, the answer is not as clear cut.Even so, the Endowment Model still adds value for a long-term portfolio that...

The knowledge of equity style of PRS funds has benefited investors by mitigating the issue of asymmetric information between fund managers and investors. Using a return-based style analysis with PRS fund data from April 2013 to February 2015, our study found that: first, moderate funds have the...

In defined contribution (DC) pension schemes, the regulator usually imposes asset allocation constraints (minimum and maximum limits by asset class) in order to create funds with different risk-return profiles. In this article we challenge this approach and show that such funds exhibit erratic...

We study how pension fund (out)performance is influenced by a) a pension fund's activity, i.e., how much the pension fund deviates in its stock allocation from the typical pension fund behavior, and b) whether the pension fund exploits short- or long-term mispricing opportunities (measured by...

This article implements the minimum variance frontier for the stochastic discount factor, according to both Hansen and Jagannathan (1991) and Cochrane and Hansen (1992), for the Brazilian stock market. Two approaches are considered in terms of equity returns and equity premium, respectively, the...

Using a novel dataset with over 100,000 actual payout decisions, we investigate the nature of the strong negative relationship between recent stock returns and the annuitization of retirement savings. After controlling for several standard explanations (e.g., wealth effects), we present evidence...

I document a strong negative relationship between stock market returns and annuitization. Using a novel dataset with more than 103,000 actual payout decisions, I find that positive stock market returns decrease the likelihood of employees choosing an annuity over a lump sum, and vice versa. More...

I document a strong negative relationship between stock market returns and annuitization. Using a novel dataset with more than 103,000 actual payout decisions, I find that positive stock market returns decrease the likelihood of employees choosing an annuity over a lump sum, and vice versa. More...

The recent financial crisis and historical record suggest important lessons about the design of national pension systems. First, wide fluctuation in asset returns makes it hard for well-informed savers to select a saving rate or a sensible investment strategy for DC pensions. Workers who follow...

Regulation in countries that have adopted defined contribution (DC) pension systems based on savings accounts typically includes minimum return guarantees (MRG) provisions to limit the risk of financial downturns. This paper studies the consequences of this regulation over asset allocation...