IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/decono/v162y2014i1p41-70.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Drives Pension Indexation in Turbulent Times? An Empirical Examination of Dutch Pension Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Dirk Broeders
  • Paul Hilbers
  • David Rijsbergen
  • Ningli Shen

Abstract

This paper identifies the key factors influencing indexation decisions in turbulent economic times within defined benefit plans using a unique panel dataset of 166 Dutch pension funds from 2007 to 2010. Key drivers of indexation are the funding ratio, inflation and real wage growth. The type of pension fund and the interest rate exposure are also statistically significant, although the latter effect is nonlinear. The asset allocation has no significant effect on the level of provided indexation as this is already captured by the funding ratio. We also examine the relation between policy ladders and the actual level of provided indexation. This study finds that a policy ladder with an upper limit equal to a 100 % real funding ratio is able to predict the actual level of indexation more accurately than a ladder with an upper limit based on a pension fund’s required nominal funding ratio. The latter tends to overestimate the actual level of indexation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Broeders & Paul Hilbers & David Rijsbergen & Ningli Shen, 2014. "What Drives Pension Indexation in Turbulent Times? An Empirical Examination of Dutch Pension Funds," De Economist, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 41-70, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:decono:v:162:y:2014:i:1:p:41-70
    DOI: 10.1007/s10645-014-9223-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10645-014-9223-y
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10645-014-9223-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F, 1981. "Stock Returns, Real Activity, Inflation, and Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 545-565, September.
    2. Roel Beetsma & Alessandro Bucciol, 2011. "Differentiating Indexation in Dutch Pension Funds," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 323-360, September.
    3. Fama, Eugene F. & Schwert, G. William, 1977. "Asset returns and inflation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 115-146, November.
    4. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226062815 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bodie, Zvi, 1976. "Common Stocks as a Hedge against Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 459-470, May.
    6. J. de Dreu & J.A. Bikker, 2009. "Pension fund sophistication and investment policy," Working Papers 09-13, Utrecht School of Economics.
    7. Cui, Jiajia & Jong, Frank De & Ponds, Eduard, 2011. "Intergenerational risk sharing within funded pension schemes," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, January.
    8. Ponds, Eduard H. M. & Riel, Bart Van, 2009. "Sharing risk: the Netherlands' new approach to pensions," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 91-105, January.
    9. Dirk Broeders, 2010. "Valuation of Contingent Pension Liabilities and Guarantees Under Sponsor Default Risk," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 911-934, December.
    10. Bikker, Jacob A. & De Dreu, Jan, 2009. "Operating costs of pension funds: the impact of scale, governance, and plan design," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 63-89, January.
    11. Zvi Bodie & John B. Shoven, 1983. "Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bodi83-1, March.
    12. Broeders, Dirk & Chen, An, 2010. "Pension regulation and the market value of pension liabilities: A contingent claims analysis using Parisian options," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1201-1214, June.
    13. J.A. Bikker & T. Knaap & W.E. Romp, 2011. "Real Pension Rights as a Control Mechanism for Pension Fund Solvency," Working Papers 11-15, Utrecht School of Economics.
    14. J.A. Bikker, 2013. "Is there an optimal pension fund size? A scale-economy analysis of administrative and investment costs," Working Papers 13-06, Utrecht School of Economics.
    15. de Haan, Leo & Kakes, Jan, 2011. "Momentum or contrarian investment strategies: Evidence from Dutch institutional investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 2245-2251, September.
    16. Gordon L Clark & Paul Bennett, 2001. "Dutch Sector-Wide Supplementary Pensions: Fund Governance, European Competition Policy, and the Geography of Finance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(1), pages 27-48, January.
    17. Jacob A. Bikker & Peter J.G. Vlaar, 2006. "Conditional Indexation in Defined Benefit Pension Plans," DNB Working Papers 086, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    18. Maarten Rooij & Arjen Siegmann & Peter Vlaar, 2008. "Market Valuation, Pension Fund Policy and Contribution Volatility," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 73-93, March.
    19. Mr. Shaun K. Roache & Alexander P. Attie, 2009. "Inflation Hedging for Long-Term Investors," IMF Working Papers 2009/090, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Yue Li & Rik Dillingh, 2022. "The displacement effect of compulsory pension savings on private savings. Evidence from the Netherlands, using pension funds supervisory data," Working Papers 474, DNB.
    2. Broeders, Dirk W.G.A. & van Oord, Arco & Rijsbergen, David R., 2016. "Scale economies in pension fund investments: A dissection of investment costs across asset classes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 147-171.
    3. Dirk W.G.A. Broeders & Damiaan H.J. Chen & Peter A. Minderhoud & C.J. Willem Schudel, 2021. "Pension Funds' Herding," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(1), pages 285-330, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dirk Broeders & Paul Hilbers & David Rijsbergen & Ningli Shen, 2014. "What Drives Pension Indexation in Turbulent Times? An Empirical Examination of Dutch Pension Funds," De Economist, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 41-70, March.
    2. Jacob A. Bikker & Dirk W. G. A. Broeders & David A. Hollanders & Eduard H. M. Ponds, 2012. "Pension Funds’ Asset Allocation and Participant Age: A Test of the Life-Cycle Model," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 595-618, September.
    3. Bampinas, Georgios & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2016. "Hedging inflation with individual US stocks: A long-run portfolio analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 374-392.
    4. Spierdijk, Laura & Umar, Zaghum, 2015. "Stocks, bonds, T-bills and inflation hedging: From great moderation to great recession," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1-37.
    5. Sellin, Peter, 1998. "Monetary Policy and the Stock Market: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Working Paper Series 72, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    6. Molenaar, R. & Ponds, E.H.M., 2011. "Risk Sharing and Individual Lifecycle Investing in Funded Collective Pensions," Other publications TiSEM b036a69d-317f-41c5-9581-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Martin Hoesli & Colin Lizieri & Bryan MacGregor, 2008. "The Inflation Hedging Characteristics of US and UK Investments: A Multi-Factor Error Correction Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 183-206, February.
    8. Qureshi, Fiza & Khan, Habib Hussain & Rehman, Ijaz Ur & Ghafoor, Abdul & Qureshi, Saba, 2019. "Mutual fund flows and investors’ expectations in BRICS economies: Implications for international diversification," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 130-150.
    9. Andrew Ang & Marie Brière & Ombretta Signori, 2012. "Inflation and Individual Equities," Post-Print hal-01494500, HAL.
    10. Domian, Dale L. & Louton, David A., 1997. "A threshold autoregressive analysis of stock returns and real economic activity," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 167-179.
    11. Najand, Mohammad & Noronha, Gregory, 1998. "Causal relations among stock returns, inflation, real activity, and interest rates: Evidence from Japan," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 71-80.
    12. Zaremba, Adam, 2015. "Inflation, Business Cycles, and Commodity Investing in Financialized Markets," Business and Economics Research Journal, Uludag University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, vol. 6(1), pages 1-18, January.
    13. Pindyck, Robert S, 1984. "Risk, Inflation, and the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 335-351, June.
    14. Chatrath, Arjun & Ramchander, Sanjay & Song, Frank, 1996. "Stock prices, inflation and output: Evidence from India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 237-245.
    15. Parajuli, Rajan & Chang, Sun Joseph, 2015. "Real Assets and Inflation: Which Real Assets Hedge Inflation," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205283, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. David C. Leonard & Michael E. Solt, 1987. "Stock Market Signals Of Changes In Expected Inflation," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 10(1), pages 57-63, March.
    17. Harjoat S. Bhamra & Christian Dorion & Alexandre Jeanneret & Michael Weber, 2018. "Low Inflation: High Default Risk AND High Equity Valuations," NBER Working Papers 25317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Floros, C., 2004. "Stock Returns and Inflation in Greece," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 4(2).
    19. Laopodis, Nikiforos T., 2009. "Fiscal policy and stock market efficiency: Evidence for the United States," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 633-650, May.
    20. Li, Xiyang & Chen, Xiaoyue & Li, Bin & Singh, Tarlok & Shi, Kan, 2022. "Predictability of stock market returns: New evidence from developed and developing countries," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Indexation; Policy ladders; Defined benefit pension plans; G12; G13; G23;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:decono:v:162:y:2014:i:1:p:41-70. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.