This paper investigates scale economies and the optimal scale of pension funds, estimating different cost functions with varying assumptions about the shape of the underlying average cost function: Ushaped versus monotonically declining. Using unique data for Dutch pension funds over 1992-2009,...

This paper analyses investment strategies of three types of institutional investors pension funds, life insurers and non-life insurers over the period 1999-2005. We use balance sheet and cash flow data, including purchases and sales of equity, fixed income and real estate. We trace asset...

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...

Administrative costs per participant appear to vary widely across pension funds in different countries. 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. Using unique data on 90 pension...

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...

We analyze the market-consistent valuation of pension liabilities in a contingent claim framework whereby a knock-out barrier feature is applied to capture early regulatory closure of a pension plan. We investigate two cases which we call immediate closure procedure" and delayed closure...

This study presents empirical evidence on the influence of sponsoring companies on the funding and portfolio allocation of pension funds, an issue on which most extant literature is theoretical. We use a unique microdataset of 550 Dutch defined benefit company pension funds and 100 sponsoring...