Spurred on by the recent financial crises, a growing number of institutional investors are working to bypass traditional financial intermediaries, agents and centers through the development of in-house teams of investment professionals. As such, the institutional investment community, which is...

For pension funds and other institutional investors, governance refers to the resources and processes used in decision-taking. Recognising that risk and uncertainty are the life-blood of investment strategy, in this paper we develop a resource-based framework to better understand the structure...

This paper deals with pension fund investment in urban infrastructure projects. It is suggested that the potential returns (and risks) with such projects are significantly greater than fixed income products though they have long gestation periods like gilt-edge securities. Our argument begins...

Concern about the competence of individual decision-makers has prompted governments and pension plan sponsors to take advantage of the insights gleaned from the behavioural revolution. Auto-enrolment, target-date and related investment strategies may effectively counter behavioural biases such...

Asset allocation is a classic topic in the theory of finance, and a crucial issue for investment policy. Noted for its significance in driving pension fund performance, it is also an issue that individual investors consider when designing their investment portfolios. In theory, Markowitz and...

Fiduciary duty is the golden rule ‘regulating’ the relationship between trustees and beneficiaries. In principle, it regulates behaviour by pre-empting those actions that would harm the interests of beneficiaries while promoting duties of care consistent with the interests of those that...

It is well appreciated that demographic trends threaten the integrity of continental European systems of social security. For France, these trends imply a long term financial crisis as well as a crisis of confidence in national economic and social institutions. The payment of social security...

The global financial crisis and its aftermath put into sharp relief the structure and performance of the global financial services industry. Questions have been raised as to what intermediaries separately and together add to the production of investment returns and social welfare (in general)....

This paper explores how shareholder engagement on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues is informally exercised by a large global institutional investor with locally embedded, geographically remote firms. By studying a UK asset manager's shareholder engagement strategies on ESG...

The global financial crisis and its aftermath put into sharp relief the structure and performance of the global financial services industry. Questions have been raised as to what intermediaries individually and collectively add to the production of investment returns and social welfare in...