Pension Fund Investing in an Era of Financial Repression
Invited Seminar, 26-27 September 2013, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
Lowest-low interest-rate environment and tightening regulatory activity challenge pension fund investing. Determined central bank behaviour managed to appease the EURO front, but created the perfect pension doldrums with bloated liabilities and elusive investment returns. Financial repression is the new catchword encompassing governments interfering with interest rates and credit flows to lower the burden of government debt.
At this year's Allianz-Oxford Pensions Conference we aim to sound out the latest macro and regulatory twists and turns and their implications for pension fund investing. Solvency II looms large at the EU horizon. Where are opportunities for value in today's markets and how to protect it? Dynamic risk management focuses often on dynamic de-risking. Can we afford not to take risk? We are further interested in the interface between investment and behaviour; how investment decision-making of DC plan members is shaped by time and crisis, and what we can learn from the frontiers of behavioural finance research for designing DC during accumulation as well as decumulation. The Allianz-Oxford Pensions Conference has built a reputation for active and often controversial discussions following formal presentations. The ground rules for success are simple: confidentiality, open discussion without attribution, a willingness to discuss based upon experience, and a commitment to articulating the lessons learnt thereof.
The Allianz-Oxford Pensions Conference is co-sponsored by Allianz Global Investors and the University of Oxford, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, a member of the School of Geography and the Environment. The conference will be led by Professor Gordon L. Clark, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.
Reading List
- Cannon, E.S. and Tonks, I. (2013) Cohort mortality risk or adverse selection in the UK annuity market? Netspar Discussion Paper No. 04/2013-017. Available at SSRN.
- Economou, T., Haenni, G. and Manola-Bonthond, E. (2013) A governance framework designed for dynamic asset allocation: the CERN pension fund model. The Journal of Investment Consulting, 14(1): 1-8.
- Gerrans, P. and Clark, G.L. (2013) Pension plan participant choice: Evidence on defined benefit and defined contribution preferences. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 12(4): 351-378.
- Rocha, R., Vittas, D. and Rudolph, H.P. (2011) Annuities and Other Retirement Products. The World Bank. ISBN: 9780821385739. 372 pp.
- Scholer, A.A., Zou, X., Fujita, K., Stroessner, S.J. and Higgins, E.T. (2010) When risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(2): 215-231.
Further Information
For further information please contact Dorothee Franzen (dorothee.franzen@ouce.ox.ac.uk) or Professor Gordon L. Clark (gordon.clark@smithschool.ox.ac.uk), School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom: tel: +44 (0)1865 285197 and +44 (0)1865 285067.