In the traditional banking system, growth-seeking private firms and households sit separately on the asset and liability sides of a bank’s balance sheet. Fire sales of nonperforming loans are justified to address risk-taking failures and protect household depositors. After households join the...

An outside stakeholder’s commitment to bail out a levered investment fund mightencourage the fund manager to take extreme risks. But what if the bailout were harsh?The loan would have a penalty rate and the manager would have to sacrifice partequity interest in the fund. I show that as the...

Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict the menu of investment choices to funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. Further, in the face of Internal Revenue Code changes that will take effect in 2006 and will make 403(b) plan ERISA...

Financial innovation in the form of new delivery channels, products, and providers has helped push out the frontier of access to finance and thus increase the bankable and banked population. Mobile money and crowdfunding platforms are prime examples for this. The same financial innovation has...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a few issues related to how best to communicate uncertainty about projections of future pension benefits to members of DC plans, and especially to present a pension risk simulator developed by the Chilean regulator (Superintendencia de Pensiones, SP) that...

This paper examines and evaluates the content and design of the annual pension statement sent to members of funded defined contribution (DC) pension schemes in a selection of OECD and non-OECD countries. The aims of the research are to identify the potential shortcomings in statement planning...

The present report focuses on the pre-campaign planning, the design, the delivery, and the monitoring and evaluation of National Pension Communication Campaigns in a range of OECD and non-OECD countries. The research identifies barriers to effective communications and highlights models of good...

Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict the menu of investment choices to funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. Further, in the face of Internal Revenue Code changes that will take effect in 2006 and will make 403(b) plan ERISA...

We investigate risk presentations in retirement savings decisions using a discrete choice experiment where subjects choose between a bank account, a growth account and a 50:50 account. Using nine standard formats for investment risk, we analyze responses to risk per se and to format changes....

This research studies the propensity of individuals to violate implications of expected utility maximization in allocating retirement savings within a compulsory defined contribution retirement plan. The paper develops the implications and describes the construction and administration of a...