Administrative and investment costs per participant appear to vary widely across pension funds. These costs are important because they reduce the rate of return on the investments of pension funds and consequently raise the cost of retirement security. This paper examines the impact of...

This paper reports on the findings of a survey among Dutch households (as part of the DNB Household Survey in 2003) about many aspects (expectations, concerns, attitude and preferences) of their pensions and the old-age-arrangements in the Netherlands. We explore whether the outcomes are related...

Around the world today there are striking differences in pension systems. The roles played by families, employers, trade unions, financial intermediaries, community organizations, affiliation groups, and governmental agencies vary tremendously. Yet despite these differences, in almost every...

This paper reports on the findings of a survey among Dutch households (as part of the DNB Household Survey in 2003) about many aspects (expectations, concerns, attitude and preferences) of their pensions and the old-age-arrangements in the Netherlands. We explore whether the outcomes are related...

In the domain of pension statistics comparability of pension entitlements across countries improved substantially due to new SNA/ESA recommendations. In the near future, inclusion of unfunded employment related pension schemes in the core accounts or in the supplementary table on pensions will...

In this paper we show how pay-as-you-go pension schemes impact on the individual.s optimal investment portfolio. Introducing a pay-as-you-go pension scheme implies that human wealth of young generations is transferred to retired generations. As a consequence, individuals will in general invest...

This study is an introduction to and summary of the 2002 Annual Meeting papers of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association. The general theme of this year's Annual Meeting is 'The role of wealth in the economy'. It is covered by 5 papers, which address the following topics: (i) household...

Often, a relatively small group of trades causes the major part of the trading costs on an investment portfolio. For the equity trades studied in this paper, executed by the world's second largest pension fund, we find that only 10% of the trades determines 75% of total market impact costs....

This paper compares two different types of annuity providers, i.e. defined benefit pension funds and life insurance companies. One of the key differences is that the residual risk in pension funds is collectively borne by the beneficiaries and the sponsor while in the case of life insurers, it...

This paper assesses the sophistication of pension funds' investment policies using data on 748 Dutch pension funds during the 19992006 period. We develop three indicators of sophistication: gross rounding of investment choices, investments in alternative sophisticated asset classes and home...