This study examines whether expected rate of return (ERR) manipulation is related to disclosure of pension asset allocation. FAS 132R(1), which requires firms to disaggregate the detailed categories of pension asset allocation, provides a natural experiment for studying the effect of enhanced...

This report reviews recent as well as planned changes to accounting and solvency regulations affecting insurers and pension funds and how they may impact long-term investing by these institutions. The review of existing evidence focuses mainly on the impact of risk-based solvency requirements,...

We derive the optimal corporate pension portfolio policy in a consolidated setting in the presence of PBGC insurance. The paper's result formalizes the forces of risk shifting and risk management that shape the form of the corporate pension portfolio. As in Rauh (2009), the risk-shifting and...

I study the history and performance of commercial real estate (CRE) in the pension fund portfolio, showing how many plan sponsors fundamentally changed their approach to CRE investment once underfunding gaps began to emerge in the early and middle 2000s. Several new empirical facts are...

Defined-benefit (DB) pension funds, often underfunded, rely on the legal obligation of their sponsor to secure pension rights for individuals.Because that guarantee is risky, ways must be found to secure the pension promises. This paper is the first to identify the optimal pension fund...

There has been a surge of interest in recent years from defined benefit pension plan sponsors in de-risking their plans with strategies such as “longevity hedges” and “pension buyouts” (Lin et al., 2015). While buyouts are attractive in terms of value creation, they are capital intensive...

Defined-benefit (DB) pension funds, often underfunded, rely on the legal obligation of their sponsor to secure pension rights for individuals. The sponsor guarantee being risky, its riskiness must be hedged to secure the pension promises. This appendix details the implementation of the extended...

In a defined contribution pension system, one of the main risks faced by members refers to the investment of funds. In this context, we discuss which is the most suitable risk measurement for the affiliates to the pension system. Different life-cycle investment strategies are evaluated under...

We use a modified corporate risk management framework (e.g., Froot and Stein, 1998) to understand how inefficient risk sharing between firms and employees leads to aggressive investment policies of defined corporate pensions as well as their declining popularity. For reasonable parameter values,...

The financial and economic crisis had a profound impact on the financial position of pension funds in most countries. Whilst the magnitude of these losses is primarily related to the severity of the crisis, it appears that shortcomings in the implementation of investment strategies significantly...