July 2021
02Jul

Public Pension Portfolios in a World of Low Rates and Low Risk Premiums

By He Ren, Sarah Siwinski, Calvin Yu, Andrew Ang Over the 2010s, the assets of public pension plans generated significantly higher returns than their assumed, or actuarial, rates of return. In a sample of 69 US public plans with a total of $2.1 trillion of assets, the return outperformance of assets over the assumed returns was over 200 basis points for the 10 years ending June 30, 2009. The outperformance is driven by their asset allocations being mostly exposed to...

July 2, 2021
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June 2021
23Jun

Bright Africa 2020 Pension Industry. Modernising pension policies to future-proof long-term savings

By RISCURA The latest Bright Africa Pensions research highlights how African demographics are evolving and the impact of this on long-term savings. There is no doubt that Africa’s population is and will remain the world’s largest youthful cohort for a long-time to come, so serious thought, planning and innovation are urgently required to address the risk of individuals outliving their retirement savings. Research conducted by Albouy and Nogues (2019) shows that globally, life expectancy measured at age 65, has grown...

June 23, 2021
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17Jun

Financial Literacy, Naive Diversification, and Security Selection

By Thomas A. Hanson, Jenna Kalthoff Low levels of financial literacy have been linked to costly errors in investing behavior. This paper examines the relationship between financial literacy and the two financial tasks of asset allocation and security selection in an online survey of college students. Results suggest that financial literacy can slightly attenuate the naïve diversification bias and improve security selection decisions. The results support educational efforts to increase financial literacy to improve retirement savings and financial decisions. Source: SSRN 224...

June 17, 2021
Articles, Investment,
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11Jun

The Financial Times Guide to Wealth Management: How to plan, invest and protect your financial assets – The FT Guides

By Jason Butler The Financial Times Guide to Wealth Management is your comprehensive guide to achieving financial security and stability by planning, preserving and enhancing your wealth. As well as being fully updated throughout, it includes five new chapters on socially responsible and impact investing; property, land and woodlands; single premium investment bonds; non-trust structures and young people and money. Whether you're a beginner wanting an introduction to financial planning or an experienced investor looking to pass your wealth on...

June 11, 2021
Books, Investment, Pension design,
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May 2021
25May

Pension-Fund Investment in Forestry

By Clark S. Binkley, Fiona Stewart and Samantha Power A forestry investment can include land suitable for growing trees, the trees themselves, or both. The trees can be part of a natural forest or one that has been established artificially by seeding or planting. Natural forest management typically has lower operating costs than plantation forests, but also a lower growth rate. Plantation forests are typically, but not always monocultures. Forestry has long provided opportunities for institutional investors – but the scope...

May 25, 2021
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06May

Time Horizon, Saving Motive and Stock Market Participation

By Yosef Bonaparte This paper shows that household’s saving motives influence key portfolio choice decision: stock market participation. We utilize a unique data set from the Survey of Consumer Finance (2019 and panel 2007-209), which report about 24 reasons for saving and group these intro 6 saving motive categories: durable, retirement, bequest, emergency, smooth and luxury. Our channel to identify how saving motives influence portfolio choice encompasses the time horizon, from the household’s view, about the planning time horizon to...

May 6, 2021
Articles, Investment, Savings, ,
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April 2021
23Apr

Combining Flexible Asset Allocation, Sustainable Withdrawals, and Deferred Annuities to provide an Adaptive Lifelong Investing Solution

By Anran Chen, Steven Haberman, Steve Thomas In this paper, we integrate investment decisions in the post-retirement decumulation period with that of the deferred annuity purchase to provide a lifetime decumulation solution. Based on Monte Carlo simulation and historical experience, we use the Perfect Withdrawal Rate (PWR) as a tool to make recommendations on withdrawal rates and asset allocations for different levels of risk preferences. We have a few potentially important findings. First, we illustrate how cheap it is to...

April 23, 2021
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08Apr

Longevity Risk and Capital Markets: The 2019-20 Update

By David P. Blake, Andrew J. G. Cairns This Special Issue of the Insurance: Mathematics and Economics contains 16 contributions to the academic literature all dealing with longevity risk and capital markets. Draft versions of the papers were presented at Longevity 15: The Fifteenth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference that was held in Washington DC on 12-13 September 2019. It was hosted by the Pensions Institute at City, University of London. Longevity risk and related capital market solutions...

April 8, 2021
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01Apr

Preqin Markets in Focus: Latin America’s Growing Appetite for Alternative Assets

Changing demographics, policy shifts, and a growing base of highly sophisticated investors make Latin America an increasingly attractive source for private capital. Likewise, local institutional investors in Latin America are eager to put capital to work with top performing fund managers, both inside and outside the region, with an emphasis on absolute return. Where do GPs believe the best opportunities can be found? Preqin is delighted to bring Latin American alternatives markets into the spotlight with our new report, combining comprehensive...

April 1, 2021
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March 2021
19Mar

Private Markets, Infrastructure and Venture Capital in the Post-COVID Era: The Pension Perspective

By David Weeks, M. Nicolas J. Firzli This second of a series of seven papers co-authored by M. Nicolas J. Firzli and David Weeks looks at the notions of private markets – PE, VC, private debt and infrastructure – and the "quest for yields" in a low interest rates environment, which where discussed at two recent global conferences organised by the G7 Pensions Summit (G7 P7) and the Singapore Economic Forum (SEF). ESG, impact investing, renewable energy and the notion of...

March 19, 2021
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