Given the dramatic globalization over the past twenty years, does it make sense to segregate global equities into “developed” and “emerging” market buckets? We argue that the answer is still yes. While correlations between developed and emerging markets have increased, the process of...

This paper examines stochastic or 'value based' generational accounting as a method to assess the intergenerational redistributive impact of pension reform. The analysis is applied to three policy changes to the regulation of Dutch occupational pensions during the years 2012 and 2013 that mark...

We investigate inattention on the part of pension plan participants using a novel dataset covering savings in Sweden's Premium Pension System, data that permit direct comparison of the investment behaviors of pension and retail mutual fund investors. Unlike retail mutual fund investors, pension...

We document and study international differences in both ownership and holdings of stocks, private businesses, homes, and mortgages among households aged fifty or more in thirteen countries, using new and comparable survey data. We employ counter-factual techniques to decompose observed...

This paper examines the impact of participants' age distribution on the asset allocation of Dutch pension funds, using a unique data set of pension fund investment plans for 2007. Theory predicts a negative effect of age on (strategic) equity exposures. We observe that pension funds do indeed...

This paper provides the first joint analysis of household stockholding participation, location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers. Our model matches observed participation, conditional and unconditional, and asset location patterns. We find that financial sophistication...

This paper investigates the international spillovers of government debt and the associated risk of inflation within a monetary union when countries have different pension systems. I use a stochastic two-country two-period overlapping-generations model, where one country has PAYG pensions and the...

Little is known about the degree to which individuals are uncertain about their future Social Security benefits, how this varies within the U.S. population, and whether this uncertainty influences financial decisions related to retirement planning. To illuminate these issues, we present...

This paper focuses on the exposure of common stocks to inflation risk and assesses the impact of this exposure on portfolio choice. We show that the relation between real stock returns and inflation rates, as well as the parameter uncertainty involved with this relation, has substantial...