Asset Allocation Challenges for Pension Funds: Implications for Bond Markets

Pension funds have become the largest class of investors in many markets and, given their size, the allocation of their assets has important implications for the relative prices of financial assets. There may be a trend shift of private (defined benefit) pension fund asset allocation strategies away from equity to bonds, especially to government bonds, given their limited credit risk. The potential demand for such bonds could, in principle, be very substantial, sufficient in fact to result in a scarcity of such bonds in circulation. Many debt managers have taken advantage of current bond market conditions and issued long-term to ultra-long-term bonds. But whether they should follow a strategy of maturity-lengthening with the express aim to facilitate the task for pension fund managers is a different matter. Most policy makers would not recommend that governments undertake to issue long-term debt with the express intent of meeting this demand, not least because they expect the price mechanism to clear apparent imbalances in asset markets.