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This work has two main objectives. First, we design a data-driven neural network approach to portfolio optimization within expected utility theory. The methodology is inspired by Li and Forsyth (Insur Math Econ 86:189–204, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.insmatheco.2019.03.001), who worked on target based defined contribution plans. Our proposal and the architecture of the model is flexible enough to address a variety of specific portfolio problems, from standard optimal utility allocation with constraints, to optimal deviations from a benchmark. Using the celebrated 1/N-Strategy (see DeMiguel et al. in Rev Financ Stud 22(5):1915–1953, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhm075) as benchmark constitutes the second objective of the paper. We consider two assets on a single path of historical return data for an investor whose utility is represented by a constant relative risk aversion function. Across several levels of risk aversion, we revisit the literature claims that it is essentially impossible to significantly outperform 1/N. Using our advanced method, we confirm that this is only true for high levels of risk aversion, but the 1/N can be consistently outperformed for low and moderate risk aversion levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the robust time-consistent investment strategy for the defined contribution pension plan with a minimum guarantee in a stochastic interest rate and stochastic inflation environment under the mean-variance criterion. To protect the purchasing power of pension members after retirement, the amount of the minimum guarantee is assumed to be adjusted with the stochastic interest rate and inflation level in the model. The fund manager is considered as ambiguity averse, and her objective is to prevent herself from the worst-case scenario and ensure that the fund wealth exceeds the minimum guarantee at retirement. The ambiguity-averse manager is allowed to invest in a financial market consisting of four assets: a risk-free asset, a nominal zero-coupon bond, an inflation-indexed bond and a stock. The nominal zero-coupon bond and the inflation-indexed bond are designed to hedge against interest rate risk and inflation risk. Following the robust optimal control theory, both the robust time-consistent strategy and the equilibrium value function are derived by an introduction of an auxiliary problem. Some degenerate cases are also provided. Finally, a numerical simulation demonstrates the results obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past three decades, almost all OECD countries and all members of the European Union have reformed their pension systems. OECD Pensions at a Glance, OECD, Paris, OECD Pensions at a Glance | OECD iLibrary (oecd-ilibrary.org) The fraction of pension savings that can go directly into the solidarity reserve is limited to 10%, but in addition, around 30% of the pension savings of a young worker can subsequently be transferred to the solidarity reserve via a levy on future positive excess returns. [Extracted from the article]

Using a unique matched-panel dataset that combines detailed demographic information from the Florida Department of Education's annual survey of school districts with investment information from the Florida State Board of Administration for 2002–2009, this paper looks for the presence of peer effects among Florida Defined Contribution plan participants at the school level. Overall, the regression results suggest a small, but significant peer effect on asset allocations and activity level. A 1 standard deviation change in initial peer equity yielded a 0.04 standard deviation change in equity reallocation. This is in comparison to a 1 standard deviation change in the individual's own initial equity allocation, which would yield a 0.16 standard deviation change in equity allocation. For activity level, a 5.2% change in peer activity level increased the likelihood of a participant being active by 1.8%. The findings are reinforced by similar analysis using false peer groups. These findings suggest the presence of a social multiplier for coworker investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the problem of choosing the optimal pension fund in the second pillar of Lithuanian pension system by providing some guidelines to individuals with defined contribution pension plans. A multistage risk-averse stochastic optimization model is proposed that can be used to plan a long-term pension accrual under two different cases: minimum and maximum accumulation plans as possible options in the system. The investment strategy of personal savings is based on the optimal solutions over possible scenario realizations generated for a particular participant. The concept of the risk-averse decision-maker is implemented by choosing the conditional value at risk as the risk measure defined by a nested formulation that guarantees the time consistency in the multistage model. The paper focuses on three important decision-making moments corresponding to the duration of periods to be modelled. The first period is a short-term accumulation, while the second period is a long-term accumulation with possibly high deviation of objective function value. The third period is designed to implement the concept of target date fund in the second pillar pension scheme as the subsequent need to protect against potential losses at risky pension funds. The experimental findings of this research provide insights for individuals as decision-makers to select pension funds, as well as for policy-makers by revealing the vulnerability of pension system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk based portfolio construction and particular risk parity or equally weighted risk contribution became popular among practitioners. These approaches focus only on risk and are agnostic with respect to the expected returns. In this paper, we consider risk budgeting; a generalization of risk parity. We propose an alternative formulation that is more efficient computationally. We introduce the robust risk budgeting, a robust variant of the standard risk budgeting that deals with the uncertainty in the input parameters. We show that the problem remains tractable under different types of uncertainty. We evaluate the proposed framework on real data and we observe a positive premium associated with the robust variant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the position of a member of a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme having the possibility of taking programmed withdrawals at retirement. According to this option, she can defer annuitization of her fund to a propitious future time, that can be found to be optimal according to some criteria. This option, that adds remarkable flexibility in the choice of pension benefits, is not available in many countries, where immediate annuitization is compulsory at retirement. In this paper, we address and try to answer the questions: 'Is immediate annuitization optimal? If it is not, what is the cost to be paid by the retiree obliged to annuitize at retirement?'. In order to do this, we consider the model by Gerrard et al. in Quant Finance, () and extend it in two different ways. In the first extension, we prove a theorem that provides necessary and sufficient conditions for immediate annuitization being always optimal. The not surprising result is that compulsory immediate annuitization turns out to be sub-optimal. We then quantify the extent of sub-optimality, by defining the sub-optimality cost as the loss of expected present value of consumption from retirement to death and measuring it in many typical situations. We find that it varies in relative terms between 6 and 40%, depending on the risk aversion of the member. In the second extension, we make extensive numerical investigations of the model and seek the optimal annuitization time. We find that the optimal annuitization time depends on personal factors such as the retiree's risk aversion and her subjective perception of remaining lifetime. It also depends on the financial market, via the Sharpe ratio of the risky asset. Optimal annuitization should occur a few years after retirement with high risk aversion, low Sharpe ratio and/or short remaining lifetime, and many years after retirement with low risk aversion, high Sharpe ratio and/or long remaining lifetime. This paper supports the availability of programmed withdrawals as an option to retirees of DC pension schemes, by giving insight into the extent of loss in wealth suffered by a retiree who cannot choose programmed withdrawals, but is obliged to annuitize immediately on retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most countries tax retirement savings according to the EET (exempt contributions, exempt accumulations, taxable withdrawals) regime. Relevant literature recommends the use of TEE (taxable contributions, exempt accumulations, exempt withdrawals) or EET systems and emphasizes their near equivalence. We show that this near equivalence breaks down when considering the tax effects on risk-taking. This paper proves that the TEE regime is risk-taking neutral, while the EET regime does not, in general, respect this property. The argument of risk-taking neutrality thus calls for broadening the use of the TEE configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portfolio insurance strategies are designed to protect investors against adverse market movements by providing an initially specified guarantee during the investment period. This kind of a protection mechanism is especially important for systems with long investment horizons such as pension plans. In this paper, we consider various versions of the Constant Proportion Portfolio Insurance (CPPI) method under discrete-time trading for a defined-contribution pension plan that includes regular contributions of random size dependent on a stochastic income process. We compare different floor processes for the CPPI with regard to gap-risk and cash-lock probability by computing respective risk measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a problem of finding optimal contracts in continuous time, when the agent’s actions are unobservable by the principal, who pays the agent with a one-time payoff at the end of the contract. We fully solve the case of quadratic cost and separable utility, for general utility functions. The optimal contract is, in general, a nonlinear function of the final outcome only, while in the previously solved cases, for exponential and linear utility functions, the optimal contract is linear in the final output value. In a specific example we compute, the first-best principal’s utility is infinite, while it becomes finite with hidden action, which is increasing in value of the output. In the second part of the paper we formulate a general mathematical theory for the problem. We apply the stochastic maximum principle to give necessary conditions for optimal contracts. Sufficient conditions are hard to establish, but we suggest a way to check sufficiency using non-convex optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift to defined contribution plans has increased concerns about retirement adequacy for the working population. Different from prior research in countries where retirement savings are voluntary, this study explored the drivers of additional savings within the Australian superannuation system where mandatory savings are in place. Results suggested that age, economic and financial status, and job characteristics are important indicators for voluntary superannuation savings. Affordability, false beliefs, and lack of awareness about retirement savings inhibit participation. Past saving habits and retirement planning positively affect voluntary retirement savings. Joint modelling of pre- and post-tax savings decisions suggested a substitution effect between the two, adding new evidence to the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce the Heston-Hull-White (the hybrid) model in the pension fund management. The optimal investment and benefit payments policies for the DC pension fund with an income drawdown option are presented explicitly. In this study, the pension fund manager is allowed to invest the fund wealth in riskless and risky assets. The risk asset price dynamics evolve according to the Hybrid Stochastic Volatility (Heston-Hull-White) model. The goal of the pension fund manager is to maintain the standard of lives for the pension fund members after retirement. We derived the HJB equation and established the closed-form solution for the optimal control policies using stochastic dynamic programming principle. To illustrate the economic implications of the model, we provide a numerical example and simulations. The results reveal that the optimal investment and benefit payments strategies convergence successful with time t. The risk asset price volatility and interest rate mean reversion are inversely proportional to investment policy. The interest rate volatility and risk preference are both directly proportional to investment and benefit payments. The pension fund managers are advised to control the investment and the benefit payments policies to achieve the goals of the pension fund members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the investment decisions of women and men in Chile who were contributing to Chile's mandatory defined contribution (DC) retirement plan, using a large survey of participants (2782 people) conducted in 2009 by Chile's Subsecretariat of Social Protection. The basic research question was whether Chilean women were more risk averse in their retirement investment decisions than Chilean men. Chile's retirement plan offers a default plan for those who do not want to manage their funds. For those wishing to manage their investments, it offers five funds varying in risk from an all bond fund to a fund that is primarily stocks. There was no significant difference in the percentage of men and women choosing the default funds. We used probit analysis to determine what demographic factors affected the choice of the default fund, and found that younger people and men with less education and less income were more likely to choose the default; only age was significant for women. We found no significant gender differences in the fund choices of active investors. We conducted linear regression analysis by gender, where the dependent variable was the fund, with fund 1 having the lowest risk and fund 5 having the highest risk. We found that that the risk taking decreased with age and increased with financial knowledge, psychological risk tolerance, income and unemployment. Chilean women and men seemed similar in their investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An asset allocation problem of a member of a defined contribution (DC) pension fund is discussed in a hidden, Markov regime-switching, economy using backward stochastic differential equations, (BSDEs). A risk-based approach is considered, where the member selects an optimal asset mix with a view to minimizing the risk described by a convex risk measure of his/her terminal wealth. Firstly, filtering theory is adopted to transform the hidden, Markov regime-switching, economy into one with complete observations and to develop, (robust), filters for the hidden Markov chain. Then the optimal asset allocation problem of the member is formulated as a two-person, zero-sum stochastic differential game between the member and the market in the economy with complete observations. The BSDE approach is then used to solve the game problem and to characterize the saddle point of the game problem. An explicit expression for the optimal asset mix is obtained in the case of a convex risk measure with quadratic penalty and it can be considered a generalized version of the Merton ratio. An explicit expression for the optimal strategy of the market is also obtained, which leads to a risk-neutral wealth dynamic and may provide some insights into asset pricing in the economy with inflation risk and regime-switching risk. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate financial implications of the BSDE solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilizes pension plan level 5500 data from the Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service to investigate the determinants of traditional defined benefit plan conversion to hybrid cash balance plans during the 1990s. Incorporating the possibility of plan termination instead of plan conversion, the author finds a negative effect of plan funding status, union status, the number of total defined benefit plans at the firm, and plan contributions on the likelihood of plan conversion. The number of active participants and total defined contribution plans at the firm positively affect the probability of conversion. Plans at firms with at least one union plan were less likely to terminate. Additionally, the number of defined benefit plans at the firm and plan contributions had a negative effect on the likelihood of plan termination. Industry fixed effects were significant in all specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Records of 793,794 employees eligible to participate in 647 defined contribution pension plans are studied. About 71% of them choose to participate in the plans, and of the participants, 12% choose to contribute the maximum allowed, $10,500. The main findings are (other things equal) (1) participation rates, contributions and (most remarkably) savings rates increase with compensation; on average, a $10,000 increase in compensation is associated with a 3.7% higher participation probability and $900 higher contribution; (2) women’s participation probability is 6.5% higher than men’s and they contribute almost $500 more than men; (3) participation probabilities are similar for employees covered and not covered by DB plans, but those covered by DB plans contribute more to the DC plans; (4) the availability of a match by the employer increases employees’ participation and contributions; the effect is strongest for low-income employees; (v) participation rates, especially among low-income employees, are higher when company stock is an investable fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study evaluates the magnitude of efficiency losses of household portfolio choices in self-directed pension accounts (SDAs). It uses data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The determinants of the magnitude of efficiency losses across household investors are investigated in detail. The findings of this study lend empirical support to the belief that the magnitude of efficiency losses for household investors differs with the different demographic characteristics and investment propensities. In particular, household investors with long-investment horizons, with more autonomy of choices in their SDAs, or with the tendency to select high levels of portfolio risk in SDAs are more vulnerable to efficiency losses. Factors to predict the levels of portfolio risk maintained by household investors in their SDAs are also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The constant elasticity of variance(CEV) model was constructed to study a defined contribution pension plan where benefits were paid by annuity. It also presents the process that the Legendre transform and dual theory can be applied to find an optimal investment policy during a participant’s whole life in the pension plan. Finally, two explicit solutions to exponential utility function in the two different periods (before and after retirement) are revealed. Hence, the optimal investment strategies in the two periods are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]