This paper analyzes optimal investment policies for pension funds of a defined benefit (DB) type. The nature of a DB fund induces a natural modeling of preferences being of the mean-downside risk type. With compensation for inflation as an explicit goal of a pension fund, a natural reference point for the risk measure is the real or indexed value of the liabilities. Results are presented for a mean-shortfall model and different assumptions for inflation uncertainty, correlation between inflation and stock returns, and the level of the risk-free rate. Comparative statics show increased risk-taking for funding ratios moving away from the reference point. We provide intuition for the results and compare the outcomes with actual investment policies of six large Dutch pension funds.
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