Estimated expected returns are important for pension plans, as they influence many plan characteristics including required asset levels, annual contributions, and the extent of plan under- or over funding. Yet, there seems to be little prior literature on the factors influencing these estimated...

This article examines a topic of much interest, the association of financial architecture and national equity premia for recent eight-year period from 15 emerging-market countries. Modeling simultaneously our estimate of the ex-ante equity premium as a dependent variable and our measure of...