April 2018

23Apr

Portfolio Choice, Trading, and Returns in a Large 401(K) Plan

By Pierluigi Balduzzi (Boston College), Julie R. Agnew (College of William and Mary) & Annika E. Sundén (Stockholm University) This paper examines portfolio choice, trading behavior, and realized rates of return of more than seven thousand 401(k) retirement accounts during the April 1994-August 1998 time period. The evidence on equity allocations is indicative of prudent behavior: on average our investors hold 40% of their 401(k) portfolios in stocks. In addition, patterns of stock allocations by marital status, age, and earnings...

April 23, 2018
Pension design,
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23Apr

Do People Really Want Freedom of Choice? Assessing Preferences of Pension Fund Participants

Reforms in private pension plans across the world are opening up more options for pension participants to make choices to suit their preferences. Freedom of choice is however not a unidimensional concept as it is commonly perceived by policy makers. People can value both the freedom to choose as well as the freedom not to choose This observation can have far-reaching implications for pension policy design. By using a unique panel survey among Dutch employees we are able to...

April 23, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Savings
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23Apr

Freedom and choice in pensions

The government’s long-term economic plan is providing the foundations for the UK’s future economic security. A key part of this is to foster a new culture of saving. Saving must be flexible and attractive in order to encourage people to take greater responsibility for their financial future. And people need to have access to the best advice. Nowhere is this more important than in saving for a pension and planning for retirement. When this Government took office the pensions system...

April 23, 2018
Management, Pension design
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23Apr

Implications of Behavioural Economics for Mandatory Individual Account Pension Systems

By Waldo Tapia & Juan Yermo In individual account pension systems, members bear the risks and consequences of their investment decisions. If participants behave as predicted by economic theory, such responsibility would be welfare enhancing as members would invest and hold a portfolio of financial assets with a risk-return combination consistent with their investment horizon, degree of risk aversion and the portfolio of other assets they hold, including their human capital and, where relevant, their home. Behavioural economists and empirical...

April 23, 2018
Investing, Labor Market, Savings,
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23Apr

Survey of Investment Choice by Pension Fund Members

By Edina Rozinka & Waldo Tapia A recent trend in individual accounts schemes is the introduction and expansion of investment alternatives to plan members. The goal of investment choice is to enable plan members to select the optimal investment portfolio that matches their particular risk-return preference and ultimately, maximizes their retirement income. This document focuses on some key analytical and policy issues regarding investment choice by pension plan/fund members in occupational defined contribution and personal pension arrangements during the accumulation...

April 23, 2018
Investing, Management,
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23Apr

Defined Contribution Pensions: Plan Rules, Participant Choices, and the Path of Least Resistance

By James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian & Andrew Metrick Over the last 20 years, defined-contribution pension plans have gradually replaced defined benefit pension plans as the primary privately sponsored vehicle to provide retirement income. At year-end 2000, employers sponsored over 325,000 401(k) plans with more than 42 million active participants and $1.8 trillion in assets.1 The growth of 401(k)-type savings plans and the associated displacement of defined benefit plans have generated new concerns about the adequacy of employee...

April 23, 2018
Pension design, ,
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23Apr

Active Investment Decisions of Members in the Chilean DC Pension System: Performance and Learning over time

By Olga Fuentes, Pamela Searle & Félix Villatoro This paper studies the investment decisions of members of the Chilean DC pension System using administrative data. Since 2002, members of the system have had the opportunity to choose between five different types of funds. However they have made little voluntary changes. This reinforces the importance of establishing adequate default investment allocations for affiliates. We characterize and study the performance of those affiliates that make changes and find that they are mostly...

April 23, 2018
Investing, Management,
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23Apr

Supervising default investment funds

As the proportion of retirement income provided by private pensions becomes increasingly important, the quality and effectiveness of their supervision becomes more and more crucial. The IOPS Working Paper Series, launched in August 2007, highlights a range of challenges to be met in the development of national pension supervisory systems.The papers review the nature and effectiveness of new and established pensions supervisory systems, providing examples, experiences and lessons learnt for the benefit of IOPS members and the broader pensions...

April 23, 2018
Investing, Supervision,
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23Apr

Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowdout in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark

By Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Soren Leth-Petersen, Torben Nielsen, Tore Olsen Using 41 million observations on savings for the population of Denmark, we show that the impacts of retirement savings policies on wealth accumulation depend on whether they change savings rates by active or passive choice. Subsidies for retirement accounts, which rely upon individuals to take an action to raise savings, primarily induce individuals to shift assets from taxable accounts to retirement accounts. We estimate that each $1 of...

April 23, 2018
Savings,
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