Seminal papers on the size of the firm emphasise the benefits of in-sourcing over outsourcing services from the market. This provides a rationale for the development of large firms, especially in circumstances of market risk and uncertainty as to the price and quantity of available services....

Investment returns are produced by combining financial assets with human capital, the decision-making protocols of investment institutions, and the electronic infrastructure which supports the flow of information about investment opportunities. At the centre of the production process stand...

Relations between China and the USA began with the best of intentions: the USA would sponsor the normalization of China's status in the international community through trade in exchange for China's commitment to peaceful co-existence with the west. As an emerging economy, China has relied upon...

The design and governance of pension funds is an important topic of academic research and public policy and has significant implications for the welfare of participants. Here we focus upon the design and governance of defined contribution (DC) pension plans which have become the de facto model...

In an era of population aging and increasing fiscal pressures on nation-states, pension reserve funds have been mooted as effective investment vehicles for realizing future liabilities and achieving some balance between generations. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised that partisan political...

Saving for retirement is fraught with risk and uncertainty. For those not privileged by participation in a defined benefit pension plan, the issue is made complex and problematic by the failure of inherited decision rules: the options available are variable in terms of their costs and possible...

Recent research suggests that regions can be characterised according to their (more or less) financial literacy. One implication is that there may be regional ecologies of finance nested within national institutions and global markets. This paper begins by situating behaviour in time and space,...

Contract is crucial for governing the relationships between asset owners and the many types of agents that underpin the production of financial services. In this paper, we distinguish between discrete contracts for financial services and asset management contracts that are better described as...

The global financial crisis has shattered many illusions, one of which being that sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are properly treated as arms-length investment institutions subject only to global standards of good governance. In fact, in a number of East Asian countries SWFs have acted as...

The Norwegian Government Pension Fund-Global is one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds and is one of the most transparent institutions of its kind. It also has an explicit mission aimed at integrating long-term investment with a two-sided ethical commitment: to corporate engagement...