Dutch Pension Research Articles

Examining socially responsible investment preferences: A discrete choice conjoint experiment

Using a hierarchical Bayesian estimation of a discrete choice conjoint model, this research examines preferences for different responsible investment characteristics from the perspective of pension beneficiaries. We conducted a choice-based conjoint experiment in which participants were invited to select a preferred investment portfolio among different options by combining attributes such as socially responsible investments and impact investments. Based on a sample of 334 respondents, the results show the utility and relative importance that members of the administrative organization of a Dutch pension fund with a cooperative structure attach to the socially responsible portfolio. Latent class analysis yielded three segments of pension beneficiaries with different levels of psychological distance toward socially responsible investments.

Benchmark Selection and Performance

Using regulatory data that are free of self-reporting bias for 2007-2016, we decompose investment returns of 455 Dutch pension funds according to their key investment decisions, i.e. asset allocation, market timing and security selection. In extension to existing papers, we also assess the impact of benchmark selection, i.e. the pension funds’ choice for proprietary benchmarks instead of standard benchmarks. Over time, asset allocation explains 39 percent of the variation of pension funds’ returns, whereas benchmark selection, timing and selection explain 11, 9 and 16 percent, respectively. Across pension funds, asset allocation explains on average only 19 percent of the variation in pension fund returns. This is dominated by benchmark selection explaining 33 percent of cross sectional returns. Over time and across pension funds we document that benchmark selection is more important in driving returns than selection and timing.

Herding Behavior of Dutch Pension Funds in Asset Class Investments

This study investigates asset herd behavior for Dutch pension funds from 1999 to 2014 using quarterly data. We find considerable asset class herd behavior, which is more intensive for the more ‘exotic’ sub-asset classes, such as private equity and emerging market shares. We find higher buy herd behavior in sub-asset class markets, which are affected by the stock market and debt crises. The extent of pension fund’s herd behavior is affected by financial market, macroeconomics circumstances and returns. We find destabilizing effects of herd behavior for shares and private equity on the sell side, for fixed-interest investments on the buy side and for real estate on both the buy and sell side. We find stabilizing effects of herd behavior for shares and private equity on the buy side, for fixed interest investments on the sell side and for other investments on both the buy and the sell side. For crises, we find evidence that destabilizing behavior is concentrated on the buy side, whereas sell herd behavior mostly has a stabilizing effect.

Financialisation and the Pension System: Lessons from the United States and the Netherlands

Financialisation and the Pension System: Lessons from the United States and the Netherlands The articles explores the financialisation of private pensions in the United States and the Netherlands. It proposes two distinct arguments. First, the article shows that both the American and the Dutch pension systems stand out internationally for their high degrees of capitalisation and the absence of substantive investment restrictions for pension funds. The article posits that both pension systems are highly financialised, yet the process of financialisation has proceeded along different historical paths and within different institutional contexts. Secondly, the article maintains that the financialisation of pension systems is accompanied by its own political dynamics. In both political economies, different groups of actors (employers, labour unions, financial professionals) have made claims over the growing concentration of pension assets. Here, particular emphasis is given to the role of the state. It shows how since the mid-1970s, both American and Dutch pension funds have altered their investment strategies, abandoning public debt as the dominant investment category. The article explains this change in terms of the rising popularity of modern portfolio theory and the immense growth of pension capital in need of new investment options. As austerity politics have made governments more dependent on financial markets, pension funds have become more assertive in leveraging their assets and demanding political reform which are in the interest of the financial industries. Financialisation has thus fundamentally altered the balance of power between the state and financial market actors.

Contextualizing the trend from output to outcome measurement: the Dutch pension system

Measuring outcomes rather than outputs is assumed to increase transparency in reporting. The authors discuss changes in the performance indicators used in the Dutch pension system from output to outcome measures. Expectations were not met. The main outcome assessed related to the viability of the system in the long run. A side-effect was that transparency for the stakeholders was diminished.

Replicating intergenerational longevity risk sharing in collective defined contribution pension plans using financial markets

Intergenerational risk sharing is often seen as a strong point of the Dutch pension system. The ability to absorb financial and actuarial shocks through the funding ratio allows for the smoothing of returns over generations. Nevertheless, it implicitly means that generations subsidize each other, which has its disadvantages, especially in the light of incomplete contracts and situations of hard regulation constraints. This paper highlights the advantages of intergenerational risk sharing as a main characteristic in certain collective pension plans, investigating if and how much of this can be replicated by individual participation in the market. Using a stylized model based on different pension plans such as “hard”/“soft” defined benefit, collective/“pure” defined contribution, this paper identifies the effects of an increase in life-expectancy as one of the most important actual demographic shocks. The existence of regulatory constraints modifies agents’ behavior so that they tend to choose individual investment to ensure their retirement savings. In the absence of regulatory constraints, individual investment under-performs and highly replicates pension fund performance. Thus, choosing collective participation is more rational. Moreover, as the effect of the shock is decomposed, a discussion of the absorption heterogeneity by different plans is presented.

What drives public acceptance of reforms? Longitudinal evidence from a Dutch pension reform

Governments often find it hard to pursue economic reforms, even if they eventually will benefit a majority of voters. The literature remains inconclusive about the reasons for this. Some scholars, on the one hand, stress the role of distributional conflicts between different classes, for instance dividing the young and the old in the case of pay-as-you-go pensions. Others have highlighted that resistance to reform is rather broad-based owing to the public’s poor understanding of the need for reform. This paper attempts to disentangle the drivers of public acceptance of reform by means of a case study: the 2012 increase of the Dutch statutory retirement age from 65 to 67. We exploit a unique longitudinal dataset on the attitudes of Dutch households respecting pension reform in the 2003–2013 period. Our findings offer various new insights. First, we find that education, occupational status and psychological traits were the most systematic drivers of reform preferences, while age had a limited impact. Second, and significantly, we find that the year fixed effects were the main drivers of respondents’ acceptance of reform. We interpret the pattern of the year coefficients as evidence of a collective learning process whereby households gradually updated their expectations and reform preferences in light of new information.

Does it Pay to Pay Performance Fees? Empirical Evidence from Dutch Pension Funds

We analyze the relation between investment returns and performance fees for 218 Dutch occupational pension funds with an average total of 985 billion euro in assets under management from 2012 to 2015. Our dataset is free from self-reporting biases and includes total return, excess return and performance fees for six major asset classes. We find no statistical evidence that the returns of pension funds that pay performance fees to asset managers for active investing are significantly higher or lower than the returns of pension funds that do not pay performance fees. This is true for most asset classes and robust if we correct for risk and persistence in asset class returns. We also document that large and more specialized pension funds pay less performance fees for a given level of excess return in alternative asset classes such as hedge funds and private equity. This is possibly the result of better negotiation power due to their larger scale or higher level of expertise.

Framing and the annuitization decision – Experimental evidence from a Dutch pension fund

AbstractWe report the effects of framing settings in annuity demand after conducting a survey-based experiment with members of a Dutch occupational pension plan. We gave participants the option to allocate up to 20% of their projected pension accrual to a lump sum. In particular, we investigated the joint effects of consumption and investment frames and gain and loss frames. We present strong evidence for framing effects in annuity demand. Framing effects remain significant when we control for individual characteristics. We also find robust evidence of individual characteristics influencing annuity demand, highlighting the importance of heterogeneity among participants, for example risk aversion, time preference and trust in the pension fund. Gender and long-term debt positions have significant impact how one responds to framing. We conclude that Dutch plan members generally welcome the partial lump sum option over mandatory full annuitization. The application of frames appears to predictively steer annuity demand. The precise effect framing may have, would probably also depend on the institutional environment, which predefines the perspective through which individuals filter annuities.

Pension Funds Carbon Footprint and Investment Trade-Offs

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, better understanding of portfolio carbon dioxide (CO2) exposures has become increasingly important for investors,regulators and society at large. In this paper we measure the portfolio carbon footprints (CFPs) of pension funds’ stock investments. We utilize security-by-security holdings of Dutch pension funds over the period 2009-2015 and combine this with firm-level CO2 information to analyze the drivers of CFP at the portfolio level. The results show that pension funds face intricate trade-offs when aiming to reduce portfolio related CO2 emissions: expected dividend yields are positively related to the carbon footprint while portfolios’ systematic risk (market beta) is negatively related to the carbon footprint. The dividend trade-off with carbon exposures only applies to well-funded pension funds and is driven to some extent by investments in energy and utility companies. For the period 2013-2015 pension funds which publicly disclose their carbon footprint tend to have relatively lower exposure to firm with high carbon emissions.

X-efficiency and Economies of Scale in Pension Fund Administration and Investment

Pension funds’ operating costs come at the cost of benefits, so it is crucial for pension funds to operate at the lowest cost possible. In practice, we observe substantial differences in costs per member for Dutch pension funds, both across and within size classes. This paper discusses scale inefficiency and X-inefficiency using various approaches and models, based on a unique supervisory data set, which distinguishes between administrative and investment costs. Our estimates show large economies of scale for pension fund administrations, but modest diseconomies of scale for investment activities. We also found that many pension funds have substantial X-inefficiencies for both administrative and investment activities. The two kinds of inefficiency differ across types of pension funds. Therefore, most pension funds should be able to improve their cost performance, and hence increase pension benefits.

X-Efficiency and Economies of Scale in Pension Fund Administration and Investment

Pension funds’ operating costs come at the cost of benefits, so it is crucial for pension funds to operate at the lowest cost possible. In practice, we observe substantial differences in costs per member for Dutch pension funds, both across and within size classes. This paper discusses scale inefficiency and X-inefficiency using various approaches and models, based on a unique supervisory data set, which distinguishes between administrative and investment costs. Our estimates show large economies of scale for pension fund administrations, but modest diseconomies of scale for investment activities. We also found that many pension funds have substantial X-inefficiencies for both administrative and investment activities. The two kinds of inefficiency differ across types of pension funds. Therefore, most pension funds should be able to improve their cost performance, and hence increase pension benefits

Herding Behaviour of Dutch Pension Funds in Sovereign Bond Investments

This study investigates herding behaviour exhibited by Dutch pension funds in the sovereign bond market. It uses a unique dataset on sovereign bond holdings of pension funds, mutations and transactions between December 2008 and December 2014. It covers 67 large Dutch pension funds that invest in 109 countries. We find evidence of intensive herding behaviour of Dutch pension funds in sovereign bonds. Our findings also show that institutional factors, the macroeconomic environment and the financial market environment are among the determinants of herding behaviour in sovereign bonds. Our results also indicate that high diversification is not without costs as it intensifies herding behaviour. We find mixed evidence on whether pension funds are stabilising actors. The destabilising effect is most pronounced on the sell side, while stabilisation is most prominent under more extreme price shocks. The distinction between developing and emerging economies and developed economies does not change these results.

Board diversity and self-regulation in Dutch pension funds

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the change in pension fund board diversity after self-regulation was introduced, and investigate which pension fund characteristics influence compliance with self-regulation. In addition, the authors analyze whether compliance might be achieved by tokenism.Design/methodology/approachThe authors hand-collect pension fund and pension fund board data of the largest (by assets) 200 pension funds in the Netherlands. The authors compare descriptive statistics on board diversity, perform statistical tests on these, and perform non-linear regression techniques to investigate which pension fund characteristics influence compliance.FindingsThe findings are fourfold. First, over the past three years, pension fund boards have only marginally improved on gender and age diversity. In April 2014, still more than 35 percent of the funds had no women on the board, and an overwhelming 60 percent had no members below 40 years of age. This indicates that self-regulation in the pension fund industry so far has not been effective for the industry as a whole. Second, the authors find that pension funds that have larger boards are more likely to have at least one woman on the board or at least one member below 40 years of age. Third, boards of pension funds with more assets are less likely to have young board members. Fourth, boards with at least one female have a higher probability of also having at least one member below 40 years, which is suggestive of tokenism.Research limitations/implicationsBased on Hirschman’s (1970) theory of voice and exit, the authors expect that pension fund boards would be more diverse than corporate boards. However, the authors find that this is not the case. Second, given the importance of generational value transfers in pension fund policy decisions, the authors expect that age is a more important diversity characteristic than gender for pension fund boards in the Netherlands. Again, the data does not support this prediction.Practical implicationsConsistent with the literature on diversity in corporate boards, the authors find that diverse boards are on average larger. This suggests that, all other things equal, small boards might want to reconsider whether increasing their size would lead to more diversity and hence to more voice for participants that cannot exit the pension scheme. If larger funds hesitate to include young members because of their lack of relevant skills, then the authors would recommend setting up a platform to educate young candidates and prepare them for board membership. Forced independent auditor verification, as in the UK, might be a fruitful action the regulator could enforce on pension funds going forward. However, if that also does not lead to a significant improvement, compulsory diversity quota might be the only option left for policy makers.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature in at least three ways. First, the authors analyze whether self-regulation on diversity in pension fund boards has been effective. Second, the authors determine which pension fund characteristics are associated with more board diversity. Third, the authors shed light on tokenism in pension fund board composition: Diversity might be obtained through installing diversity tokens, which are individuals who have multiple diversity characteristics.

Recovery measures of underfunded pension funds: higher contributions, no indexation or pension cuts?

AbstractUsing recovery plan data of 213 underfunded Dutch pension funds for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013, discrete choice models are estimated describing pension funds' choices between three recovery measures: higher contributions, no indexation and pension cuts. The estimation results suggest, first, that pension cuts are more likely when the funding ratio is very low, there is little time left for recovery, the pension fund is not a corporate pension fund, and its participants are still relatively young. Second, the results suggest that Dutch pension funds consider contribution increase first, no indexation second and pension cuts only as a last resort.

Examining pension beneficiaries’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible and impact investment portfolio: A case study in the Dutch healthcare sector

The debate on the sustainability of the Dutch pension system and the required reforms has initiated a discussion about introducing more individual choices to collective pension schemes. The objective of this research is to examine pension beneficiaries’ willingness to accept a lower pension for investing in a socially responsible portfolio with impact investment characteristics together with socially responsible investment criteria. Our sample stems from a Dutch pension administrative organization related to the healthcare sector. Using regression models, we examine the relationship between attitudes toward impact and socially responsible investments and willingness to pay for socially responsible choices. Furthermore, we examine the influence of involvement on willingness to pay for such a portfolio. We underline the issue of inconsistent choices in the decision-making process, and we integrate the notion of psychological distance into our model. The results suggest that attitudes towards positive SRI screenings have a significantly positive influence on willingness to pay. Additionally, people with higher product involvement are more willing to pay the extra cost. Our paper contributes to the literature on responsible investments and provides implications for the design of pension policies in the collective pension schemes.

Framing and the Annuitization Decision: Experimental Evidence from a Dutch Pension Fund

We report the effects of framing and default settings in annuity demand after conducting a survey-based experiment with over 3,000 members of a Dutch occupational pension plan. The participants were asked to allocate their real projected pension accrual between a life annuity and a partial lump sum. In particular, we investigated the joint effects of consumption and investment frames and gain and loss frames. We present strong evidence for framing and default setting effects in annuity demand. We also find robust evidence of individual characteristics of influence annuity demand, highlighting the importance of heterogeneity among participants. Framing and default effects remain significant when we control for individual characteristics. We conclude Dutch plan members generally welcome the partial lump sum option over full annuitization. Framing and default settings are generally capable of predictively steering annuity demand. The precise effect framing may have also depends on the institutional environment, which predefines the perspective through which individuals filter annuities.

Pension Fundss Herding

This paper uses unique and detailed transaction data to analyse herding behavior among pension funds. We distinguish between weak, semi strong and strong herding behaviour. Weak herding occurs if pension funds have similar rebalancing strategies. Semi strong herding arises when pension funds react similarly to other external shocks, such as changes in regulation and exceptional monetary policy operations. Finally, strong herding means that pension funds intentionally replicate changes in the strategic asset allocation of other pension funds. Without an economic reason. We find empirical evidence supporting all three types of herding behaviour in the asset allocation of large Dutch pension funds.

The Need for Flexible Take-Ups of Home Equity and Pension Wealth in Retirement

This paper analyzes for the Netherlands the need to introduce flexible take-ups of home equity and pension wealth, complementary to recent reforms in Dutch pensions and mortgages. The young may gain from supplementing a possible pension shortfall with additional retirement income from reverse mortgage contracts. The elderly may benefit of the innovation of partial lump sum of accrued pension rights in order to partly redeem mortgage debt, whilst maintaining an adequate net replacement rate from pensions.

Pension beneficiaries’ and fund managers’ perceptions of responsible investment: a focus group study

Purpose This study aims to explore the views of pension beneficiaries and fund managers regarding greater involvement and investment autonomy and the attitudes toward diverse responsible investment criteria. The conventional form of investing is usually vulnerable to high financial market volatility events and financial crises, and most importantly, it has proven insufficient in addressing important social issues. A newly introduced investment culture known as impact investing strives for social gains in the long term rather than the maximization of financial returns by aiming to tackle social problems. However, some in the field claim that implementing such investment policies compromises the fiduciary responsibility of pension funds’ trustees to manage trust funds in the best interest of beneficiaries. Design/methodology/approach This study uses qualitative methods to explore the perception of proposed pension policies, such as beneficiaries’ greater involvement in determining pension investment policies that can have a positive long-term impact on their lives and on the provision of investment autonomy. For this purpose, the study investigates beneficiaries’ positions regarding responsible investment criteria from a freedom-of-choice perspective. The study sample consists of members and managers of a Dutch pension administrative organization with a cooperative structure. Three semi-structured, homogeneous discussions with focus groups containing between seven and nine participants each are conducted. The data are coded both deductively and inductively, following the framework approach, which is a qualitative data analysis method. Findings Participants demonstrate positive attitudes toward greater involvement and freedom of choice. However, the findings also indicate that members and pension fund managers have different views regarding responsible investment criteria. Members have more favorable attitudes toward responsible investment than do managers. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to focus group discussions with managers and members in the Dutch healthcare sector. Practical implications How little the current pension system matches people’s investment preferences is a matter of concern, and the main implications of this research thus center upon designing a more democratic pension system for the future. Greater involvement by pension fund beneficiaries, whose roles are currently limited, would help legitimize responsible investing. This research implies that pension policies should be designed to align with the preferences of pension fund beneficiaries and be accompanied by diverse intervention strategies. Social implications Pension reforms that encourage pension beneficiaries to exert greater influence in determining pension policy will help shrink the democratic deficit in collective pensions. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on pension fund governance and long-term responsible investing by examining the attitudes toward impact and sustainable investments and by making suggestions for future research. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the attitudes of pension fund participants toward targeted impact investments.