IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sol/wpaper/2013-118099.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rehabilitating the Role of Active Management for Pension Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Michel Aglietta
  • Marie Briere
  • Sandra Rigot
  • Ombretta Signori

Abstract

Pension fund returns can be decomposed into different sources, including market movements, asset allocation policy, and active portfolio management. We use a unique database covering the asset allocations of US defined-benefit pension funds for the period 1990-2008, and we test the role of each factor in explaining their returns. Our results shed new light on pension funds’ sources of performance. While the previous literature emphasized that policy allocation accounts for the bulk of returns, leaving little room for active management, we show that taking explicit account of market movement can change the results significantly. Although active management plays a minor role in global asset allocation, its role is predominant in explaining returns to individual asset classes, whether traditional or alternative. This paper rehabilitates the contribution of active management as a source of performance for pension funds, at least at the asset class level.

Suggested Citation

  • Michel Aglietta & Marie Briere & Sandra Rigot & Ombretta Signori, 2012. "Rehabilitating the Role of Active Management for Pension Funds," Working Papers CEB 12-018, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/118099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/118099/1/wp12018.pdf
    File Function: wp12018
    Download Restriction: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth R. French, 2008. "Presidential Address: The Cost of Active Investing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1537-1573, August.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7748 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Risk Premia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 138-160, March.
    4. Hyde, Stuart J & Bredin, Don P & Nguyen, Nghia, 2007. "Correlation dynamics between Asia-Pacific, EU and US stock returns," MPRA Paper 9681, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Marie Briere & Ariane Szafarz, 2008. "Crisis-Robust Bond Portfolios," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/14150, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. 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.
    7. Bauer, R.M.M.J. & Cremers, K.J.M. & Frehen, R.G.P., 2010. "Pension Fund Performance and Costs: Small is Beautiful," MPRA Paper 23556, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Pennacchi, George & Rastad, Mahdi, 2011. "Portfolio allocation for public pension funds," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(02), pages 221-245, April.
    9. Ralph S. J. Koijen & Theo E. Nijman & Bas J. M. Werker, 2010. "When Can Life Cycle Investors Benefit from Time-Varying Bond Risk Premia?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 741-780, February.
    10. Marie Brière & Ombretta Signori, 2009. "Do Inflation-Linked Bonds Still Diversify?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(2), pages 279-297.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7741 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Dai, Qiang & Singleton, Kenneth J., 2002. "Expectation puzzles, time-varying risk premia, and affine models of the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 415-441, March.
    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. Henke, Hans-Martin, 2016. "The effect of social screening on bond mutual fund performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 69-84.
    2. Akshentseva, Ksenya & Abramov, Alexander & Chernovà, Maria, 2015. "Problems of Formation and Evaluation of Strategies for Portfolio Investment of Pension Reserves, Accruals and Collective Investments in Russia," Published Papers mn24, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    3. Ebrahim, M. Shahid & Mathur, Ike & ap Gwilym, Rhys, 2014. "Integrating corporate ownership and pension fund structures: A general equilibrium approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 553-569.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13624 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Gökçen, Umut & Yalçın, Atakan, 2015. "The case against active pension funds: Evidence from the Turkish Private Pension System," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 46-67.
    6. Boubaker, Sabri & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Paltalidis, Nikos, 2017. "Assessing the effects of unconventional monetary policy and low interest rates on pension fund risk incentives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 35-52.
    7. Jackowicz, Krzysztof & Kowalewski, Oskar, 2012. "Crisis, internal governance mechanisms and pension fund performance: Evidence from Poland," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 493-515.
    8. Boubaker, Sabri & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Paltalidis, Nikos, 2015. "Assessing the effects of unconventional monetary policy on pension funds risk incentives," MPRA Paper 73398, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Aug 2016.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pension funds; Active management; Investment policy;

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sol:wpaper:2013/118099. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Benoit Pauwels). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/cebulbe.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.