February 2023

Norway’s gigantic sovereign wealth fund loses a record $164 billion, citing ‘very unusual’ year

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund on Tuesday reported a record loss of 1.64 trillion Norwegian kroner ($164 billion) for the whole of 2022, citing “very unusual” market conditions. The so-called Government Pension Fund Global, among the world’s largest investors, returned -14.1% last year, which it said was 0.88 percentage points better than the return on its benchmark index. “The market was impacted by war in Europe, high inflation, and rising interest rates. This negatively impacted both the equity market and bond market...

January 2023

US. Commissioner Peirce calls for SEC rule on cryptocurrency

Commission the authority to regulate the trading of digital commodities. If the SEC did pursue rule-making for digital assets, Ms. Peirce noted, "we would have to admit that we likely need more, or at least more clearly delineated, statutory authority to regulate certain crypto tokens and to require crypto trading platforms to register with us. And Congress might decide to give that authority to someone else." However, she argued that the SEC could "do the job well," specifically when it comes...

June 2021

Pandemic spurs cautious plan changes among pensions

Pension plans are cautious about making plan changes, despite the improved economy following the pandemic, according to a survey by Mercer and CFO Research. The report is based on responses from 201 senior finance executives at firms with $500 million or more in annual revenue. About a third of respondents said they were taking advantage of relief in the American Rescue Plan Act to change funding thresholds to avoid benefit restrictions or participant notices, but only 15% expect to speed...

July 2018

Demography and Provisions for Retirement: The Pension Composition, an Equilibrium Approach

By B.M.S. van Praag (University of Amsterdam) & J. Peter Hop (University of Amsterdam) Pensions may be provided for in a modern society by several methods, viz., voluntary individual savings, mandatory fully funded occupational pension systems, and mandatory social security financed by pay-as-you-go. The specific mixture of the three systems we will call the pension composition. We assume that individual workers decide about their own individual savings, that the fully funded occupational system is decided upon by the age cohort of...