This study provides new evidence on the impact of governance on the performance of privately defined contribution pension plans. Using a hand collected data set on governance factors, the study shows that the external and internal governance mechanisms in pension plans are weak. One explanation...

Due to the 2008 global financial crisis the position of the private equity sector has weakened. The number and the value of new transactions have dropped together with the volume of the raised funds. Credit shares have also decreased in the financing of the transactions. Exiting from the...

On 10 January 2013 the ECB Governing Council decided “to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged” based on an assessment of a ‚contained‘ inflationary pressure and a weak economic activity, a contraction of real GDP in second and third quarter of 2012. Similar decisions have been taken...

For pension-savers, a low payoff is a financial disaster. Such investors will most likely prefer left-skewed payoff distributions over right-skewed payoff distributions. We explore how such distributions can be delivered. Cautious-relaxed utility measures are cautious in ensuring that payoffs...

We analyse long-term consumption paths in a dynamic two-sector economy with overlapping generations. Each young generation saves for the retirement age, both with private savings and pension funds. The productivity of each sector can be raised by sector-specific research while the essential use...

In recent years Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) has received considerable attention from both private investors as well as pension funds. Despite this proliferation in interest, several topics are still unresolved, namely selection methods, performance and effects regarding sustainability....

Although pension funds have gained importance in the last two decades, their role has not been described in detail by economic models. This paper focusses on the scope of these institutional investors when they are not satisfied with a management team of a company in which the pension fund holds...

Since World War II, direct stock ownership by households has largely been replaced by indirect stock ownership by financial institutions. We argue that tax policy is the driving force. Using long time-series from eight countries, we show that the fraction of household ownership decreases with...

At the end of 2014, the pension funds in Brazil held a portfolio of R$ 672 billion. About 45% of these resources are owned by the three largest entities of the country, namely, Previ, Petros and FUNCEF. This article aims to analyze in detail the evolution of the portfolios of these three...

Pension funds in Spain have become of considerable importance in recent years. In fact, many studies have focused on fund performance and the adverse impact of fees, although little work has been done on analysis of the determinants of fees. Even though fees are restricted by legal limits in...