September 2020

The use of technology and innovative approaches in disaster and risk management: a characterization of Caribbean countries’ experiences

The application of technologies, research, development, promotion of innovative approaches and local knowledge to confront complex issues posed by hazards are important components of managing disaster risks and guiding informed decision-making. Hence commitments to support and enhance access to technologies and to foster innovative approaches to risk reduction, preparedness and resilient recovery are essential requirements for the management of current and future disasters in the Caribbean subregion. Considering the importance of Disaster and Risk Management (DRM), the aim...

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

By Ben Horowitz Henry Louis Gates Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you'd expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised...

ESG Investing: Theory, Evidence, and Fiduciary Principles

By Max M. Schanzenbach, Robert H. Sitkoff Trustees and other investment fiduciaries of pensions, charities, and personal trusts, and those who advise them, face increasing pressure to rely on ESG factors in the investment management of tens of trillions of dollars of other people’s money. At the same time, however, confusion abounds about the intersection of fiduciary principles and ESG investing. This article cuts through that confusion to provide guidance about when and how ESG investing by trustees and...

August 2020

Study of an SB2 Beneficiary’s Pension Plan

By Enriqueta Mancilla-Redón, Carmen Lozano Arizmendi The individual account pension system established by the Social Security Act 1997 shows that the contributions of beneficiaries invested in retirement fund managers have had negative returns and the investment instrument in which the contributions of the retirement savings system are invested are not known. The objective of this study is to analyze the contributions in AFORES of an SB2 classification beneficiary invested in SIEFORES and the performance they have generated that the...

Defined Benefit Pension Schemes in the UK: Asset and Liability Management

By Philippe-N. Marcaillou The goal of Asset-Liability Management (ALM) of a Defined Benefit Pension Scheme (DB) is to properly manage the risks related to variation in its building blocks on both sides of the balance sheet whilst maintaining the same expected return. This book provides a step-by-step methodology to maximize the complete restructuring and monitoring of the ALM of DB schemes. It is a product of the author's 25 years of experience and technical knowledge in ALM of...

June 2020

Actuarial and Financial Risks in Life Insurance, Pensions Pensions and Household Finance

By Luca Regis The recent regulatory changes, together with the increasing awareness of the variety of sources of uncertainty that affect the activities of insurance and pension funds, have generated increasing attention towards insurance risk management theory and practice. Against this background, this Special Issue collects relevant contributions on a variety of issues encompassing longevity risk modelling, solvency requirements, risk management, and risk sharing. This collection of papers provides insights, from both a theoretical and a practical perspective,...

UK Pension Market Report 2020

By Research and Markets In 2019, UK pension funds received total contributions of £241 billion, representing a 10% rise over the level of 2018. In 2019, contributions to workplace pensions represented 70% of total contributions and this is expected to rise to 71% in 2020. In 2019, the publisher estimates that 2.4 million new pension products were sold to members of the public. In 2019, just over 21 million employees in the UK had a workplace pension with most of...

May 2020

How People React to Pension Risk

By Nicolas Salamanca, Andries De Grip, Olaf Sleijpen We show that people exposed to greater pension risk are less likely to invest in risky assets. We exploit a reform that links people’s future pension benefits to their pension funds’ funding ratio — a measure of the fund’s financial health — making funding ratios a fund-specific measure of pension risk. The effect of pension risk is stronger for people who are better informed about their pensions, for retirees and pension-age...

Firm Behaviour in Pension Funding – An Analysis of Corporate Debt Issuing

By Marion Boddy This study investigates the commonality of United States firms using the issuance of corporate debt as a tool to fund their pension plans. The results suggest a prominence of firms in the sample utilizing debt issuances to transition their fund from underfunded to overfunded. These results are indicated through a statistically significant negative relationship between the cost of debt and an underfunded indicator when regressors are lagged by one year. Results also indicate that equity issuances...

April 2020

Pension markets in focus

By OECD The 2019 edition of Pension Markets in Focus provides an overview of the funded and private components of pension systems in 88 jurisdictions and outlines latest developments in the markets worldwide. It exhibits an extensive range of indicators relevant to funded and private pension arrangements, harmonised and standardised across jurisdictions. It monitors the key financial aspects of these arrangements, such as the amount of accumulated assets, the way these assets are invested and their investment performance, both...