October 2017

02Oct

Do Limits on Institutional Investment Increase Opportunities For Ratings Shopping at the Margin of Investment and Speculative Grade?

By Joseph Kerstein (Yeshiva University - Syms School of Business), Sungsoo Kim (Rutgers Business School - Camden), Murugappa (Murgie) Krishnan (Yeshiva University) Rating agencies are expected to be concerned about their long-term reputation because if they lose the trust of investors their ratings would lose credibility and value. We expect that there is less effective monitoring and hence more opportunities for ratings shopping within speculative grades because pensions and other similar institutions known for effective monitoring are limited by regulatory...

October 2, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Investing
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02Oct

Tonuity: A Novel Individual-Oriented Retirement Plan

An Chen, Peter Hieber & Jakob Klein (University of Ulm - Department of Mathematics and Economics) For insurance companies in Europe, the introduction of Solvency II leads to a tightening of rules for solvency capital provision. In life insurance, this especially affects retirement products that contain a significant portion of longevity risk (for example conventional annuities). Insurance companies might react by price increases for those products, and, at the same time, might think of alternatives that shift longevity risk (at...

October 2, 2017
Articles, Funding, Investing, Pension design
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September 2017

24Sep

Simplifying Choices in Defined Contribution Retirement Plan Design: A Case Study

By Donald B. Keim (University of Pennsylvania) & Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research) The growth and popularity of defined contribution pensions, along with the government’s increasing attention to retirement plan costs and investment choices provided, make it important to understand how people select their retirement plan investments. This paper shows how employees in a large firm altered their fund allocations when the employer streamlined its pension fund menu and deleted nearly half of the...

September 24, 2017
Articles, Investing, Labor Market, Savings,
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23Sep

Asset Management Market Study Final Decision: Market Investigation Reference (MIR) on investment consultancy services and fiduciary management services

By FCA This document sets out our final decision to make a Market Investigation Reference (MIR) in relation to investment consultancy services and fiduciary management services. Alongside our interim report of our Asset Management Market study we provisionally decided to make a MIR. We received a number of responses which we have carefully taken into account when reaching our final decision. In addition, the three largest investment consultants offered us a package of undertakings in lieu (UIL) of a reference to...

September 23, 2017
Articles, Books, Investing, Regulation
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22Sep

Using Behavioral Science to Increase Retirement Savings

By Andrew Fertig, Jaclyn Lefkowitz & Alissa Fishbane We all deserve a dignified retirement, yet for many of us saving enough remains an obscure, unrealized goal. In an ideal world, planning for our retirement would begin with our first job, continue throughout our working years, and end in sufficient savings for a comfortable future. This pathway may be possible for the few among us with employer-provided pensions, where someone else handles all the planning and saving. Yet trends in the retirement...

September 22, 2017
Articles, Investing, Savings, Slider-Left, System Sustainability, , , , , ,
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20Sep

The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence

By Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell In this paper, we undertake an assessment of the rapidly growing body of research on financial literacy. We start with an overview of theoretical research which casts financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. Endogenizing financial knowledge has important implications for welfare as well as policies intended to enhance levels of financial knowledge in the larger population. Next, we draw on recent surveys to establish how much (or how little)...

September 20, 2017
Articles, Investing, Savings, , ,
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15Sep

Nudging Retirement Savings: A Field Experiment on Supplemental Plans

By Robert L. Clark, Robert G. Hammond, Melinda Sandler Morrill, Christelle Khalaf Although supplemental saving plans can be an important part of an individual's financial security in retirement, contribution rates remain low, particularly among those with lower salaries and less education. We report findings from a field experiment that distributed an informational nudge containing information on key aspects of the employer-provided supplemental saving plans of older public employees in North Carolina. Among workers participating in a supplemental plan, individuals who...

September 15, 2017
Articles, Investing, Labor Market, Pension design, Slider-Left
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08Sep

Does Financial Education Impact Financial Literacy and Financial Behavior, and If so, When?

By Tim Kaiser (German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin); University of Kiel) and Lukas Menkhoff (German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin); Humboldt University of Berlin) In a meta-analysis of 126 impact evaluation studies, we find that financial education significantly impacts financial behavior and, to an even larger extent, financial literacy. These results also hold for the subsample of randomized experiments (RCTs). However, intervention impacts are highly heterogeneous: Financial education is less effective for lowincome clients as well as...

September 8, 2017
Articles, Investing, Savings, , ,
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01Sep

Equity Solvency Capital Requirements: What Institutional Regulation Can Learn from Private Investor Regulation

By David Blitz, Winfried G. Hallerbach, Laurens Swinkels & Pim van Vliet (Robeco Asset Management) Solvency II has one standard equity solvency capital requirement for type 1 or developed market stocks (39 percent) and one for type 2 or emerging market stocks (49 percent). As such, differences in financial economic risk of stock portfolios within developed or emerging markets do not influence solvency requirements. This encourages risk-seeking behavior by insurance companies, and could sustain or even create structural mispricing in...

September 1, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Investing, Regulation
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August 2017

31Aug

Second Mexico exchange aims to open at start of 2018 -bourse chief

Mexico's new, second stock exchange BIVA aims to be operating by the start of next year, as it bids to capture part of the existing market in Latin America's No. 2 economy and entice more companies to issue stock, the new exchange's president said on Monday. The Institutional Stock Exchange, known by its Spanish acronym BIVA, is set to formally receive its operating license at an event in Mexico City on Tuesday. It will compete with the Mexican Stock Exchange,...

August 31, 2017
Investing, News, Slider
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