This paper investigates the characteristics of US and Canadian pension funds that allocate assets to hedge funds. The typical pension fund that invests in hedge funds is a large sophisticated pension fund that diversi…es its portfolio across numerous classes of investments, private equity in...

This paper investigates to what extent IFRS standards may cause incentives or constraints on long-term investment strategies of French insurance companies, based on 43 semi-structured interviews of insurance companies’ managers, regulators and professional organizations in France. Our results...

While private equity funds have become responsible for an enormous amount of investment in the economy due to the increasing interest of pension funds, the literature that analyses private equity allocation is very scarce. These types of investments are not only attractive for pension funds...

We investigate the influence of investment regulations on the riskiness and procyclcality of defined-benefit (DB) pension funds' asset allocations. We provide a global comparison of the regulatory framework for public, corporate and industry pension funds in the US, Canada and the Netherlands....

This paper deals with two issues. On the one hand, it shows that structural changes in financial markets and in the hedge funds industry make the “light-touch” arguments for regulating hedge funds no longer relevant. On the other hand, pleas for stronger regulation of hedge funds are getting...

The aim of this paper is to put forward a relevant indicator that could help supervisors to regulate the excessive use of leverage which gives rise to systemic risk. We suggest the aggregated leverage ratio named “Global Aggregated Leverage Ratio” (GALR), which encompasses the activity of...

In this paper, we investigate the relative importance of drivers to pension funds’ asset allocation choices. We specifically test if the contrast between regulatory approaches of public and private Defined Benefits (DB) pension funds in the US, Canada and the Netherlands have an impact on the...

This paper deals with two issues. On the one hand, it shows that structural changes in financial markets and in the hedge funds industry make the “light-touch” arguments for regulating hedge funds no longer relevant. On the other hand, pleas for stronger regulation of hedge funds are getting...

Pension fund returns can be decomposed into different sources, including market movements, asset allocation policy, and active portfolio management. We use a unique database covering the asset allocations of US defined-benefit pension funds for the period 1990–2008, and we test the role of...