Defined benefit pensions are still an important part of retirement income security for 44 million people. After 2000, these plans experienced extreme difficulties. Although the magnitude of the problem was unprecedented, its causes were not. Interest rate and asset prices decline in a recession,...

Um die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung zu entlasten, wurde mit dem Altersvermögensgesetz (AVmG) zum 01.01.2002 in Deutschland die staatlich geförderte kapitalgedeckte private und betriebliche Altersvorsorge erheblich in ihrem Umfang erweitert. Im Rahmen der privaten Altersvorsorge stellen...

A number of countries have introduced individual, privately managed defined-contribution accounts, where the value of the pension benefit will depend on accumulated contributions and investment returns. These schemes expose workers’ future pension benefits to a number of different risks. To...

Financialisation is a complex and dynamic process of enlarging the monetary and financial relations in economy and society. This paper deals with the analysis of the financial market structure, such as: the role and magnitude of financial sectors, the dynamics of the banking sector versus the...

Investment taxes have a substantial impact on the performance of taxable mutual fund investors. Mutual funds can reduce the tax burdens of their shareholders by avoiding securities that are heavily taxed and by avoiding realizing capital gains that trigger higher tax burdens to the funds’...

Stress testing has recently become a critical risk management and capital planning tool for large financial institutions and their supervisors around the world. However, the one prior U.S. experience tying stress test results to capital requirements was a spectacular failure: the Office of...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key contributors to economic growth and job creation. The current economic and financial crisis has reduced bank lending and has affected SMEs in particular. Capital markets will have to play a bigger role in financing SMEs in order to make them more...

This study analyzes the loss potential arising from investments into CDS for a sample of large U.S. and German mutual funds. Further, it investigates whether the comments funds make on CDS use in periodic fund reports are consistent with the disclosed CDS holdings. For several funds in the U.S.,...