We document a novel channel through which coordinated noise trading exerts externalities on financial markets dominated by institutional investors. We exploit a unique set of events where Chilean pension fund investors followed an influential financial advisory firm that recommended frequent...

Participants in defined contribution (DC) retirement plans rarely adjust their portfolio allocations, suggesting that their investment choices and consequent money flows are sticky and not discerning. Yet, the participants' inertia could be offset by the DC plan sponsors, who adjust the plan's...

This paper investigates whether mutual fund families acting as trustees of 401(k) plans display favoritism toward their own funds. Using a hand-collected dataset on retirement investment options, we show that poorly-performing funds are less likely to be removed from and more likely to be added...

It is widely believed that correlations between international equity markets tend to increase in highly volatile bear markets. This has led some to doubt the benefits of international diversification. This article solves the dynamic portfolio choice problem of a US investor faced with a...

This paper explores four models of firms' pension liabilities. All of the models yield the result that if it is the stockholders who gain or lose from a change in the market value of pension fund assets, a pension fund invested entirely in bonds will maximize that gain. If a firm's pension...

I believe that every tax-paying firm's defined benefit pension fund portfolio should be invested entirely in bonds (or insurance contracts). Although the firm's pension funds are legally distinct from the firm, there is a close tie between the performance of the pension fund investments and the...

This paper uses a new data set of quarterly portfolio holdings of 769 all-equity pension funds between 1985 and 1989 to evaluate the potential effect of their trading on stock prices. We address two aspects of trading by money managers: herding, which refers to buying (selling) the same stocks...

This paper takes a first look at investment strategies of managers of 769 pension funds, with total assets of $129 billion at the end of 1989. The data show that managers of these funds tend to oversell stocks that have performed poorly. Relative sales of losers accelerate in the fourth quarter,...

The purpose of this paper is to survey what is known about the investment policy of pension funds. Pension fund investment policy depends critically on the type of plan: defined contribution versus defined benefit. For defined contribution plans investment policy is not much different than it is...

We study empirical patterns in investment behavior using a comprehensive data set of defined contribution plans. Using plan-level portfolio allocation data for the near universe of 401(k) plans over the period 2009-2019, we document substantial differences in investment behavior across plans....