An Examination of ERR and Asset Allocation in Public Pension Plans

In this paper, we examine the usefulness of expected rates of return (ERR) for public pension plans. Specifically, we test the correlation between the expected rate of return on plan assets and asset allocation. We also examine the predictive power of ERR on the actual returns of the pension assets. We find that the correlation between expected return and the percentage of assets that are equity securities is relatively weak. Further, we find that the percentage of assets that are equity securities is a much better predictor of actual returns than the disclosed expected return in public pension plans. These results provide evidence to support SFAS No. 87 , which requires the disclosure of plan assets and against recently promulgated SFAS No. 132 , which eliminates this disclosure requirement. The evidence also supports GASB 25'sStatement of Net Plan Assets .     

The Role of Real Estate in an Institutional Investor's Portfolio Revisited

Many papers have recently pointed out that institutional investors allocate only a very small fraction of their portfolio to real estate, much smaller than theory would dictate. This raises the question, are institutional investors underinvested in real estate equities? Or do we simply have the wrong priors? This paper is an attempt to provide some new insights into this asset allocation paradox. The key conclusions of the paper are several: First, unlike other assets, it would appear that real estate, and real estate diversification, pays off at the very time when the benefits are most needed, that is, when consumption growth opportunities are low. Second, real estate returns are predictable. In fact, the amount of predictability in real estate returns appears to be about the same as in stock returns. Third, real estate performs well in an asset-liability framework. Fourth, the chance of experiencing a large loss on real estate over a long horizon is quite small. We also report here that private sector commercial real estate investments represent between 6 and 12 percent of investable wealth in the United States. Thus, it follows (if one believes the capital asset pricing model) that if institutional investors were to invest more in real estate (up to 12 percent of their assets), they should be able to eliminate nonmarket or unique risk. All of this leaves us a bit dumbfounded as to why institutional investors hold only between 2 and 3 percent of their assets in real estate.     

Dynamics of Private and Public Real Estate Markets

Using five assets (T-bills, bonds, stocks, and both public and private real estate), this study investigates how cointegration of capital markets affects the dynamics of public and private real estate markets. The results show that the price indices of the five assets are nonstationary and cointegrated. Some implications for the long-term equilibrium relationship for portfolio diversification, price discovery and prediction are discussed. In a Granger causality framework, error-correction augmented VAR models (VECM) and unrestricted VAR models are compared with respect to the conclusion regarding the interaction between public and private real estate returns. VECM is also shown to improve the prediction of private real estate returns relative to an unrestricted VAR model. These results raise questions about previous research studies regarding the dynamics between public and private real estate returns. It is shown that the long-term equilibrium relationship establishes a feedback between the two real estate markets, but the private market seems to informationally lead the public one. Possible explanations are also explored.     

公共养老储备基金资产配置比较研究与启示——基于挪威、法国、爱尔兰、新西兰四国公共养老储备基金比较分析

公共养老储备基金的资产配置策略是以储备基金的营运目标为导向制定的。设定基准投资组合、分散化的全球资产配置、重视新兴市场与社会责任投资、再平衡策略与动态资产配置策略并重等成为近年来各国共公告养老储备基金资产配置的主要特征。基于全国社会保障基金的投资实践,文章提出了制定差异化的资产配置策略以实现不同阶段目标,投资监管模式和资产配置策略同步创新以实现投资监管与投资实践良性互动,加快资产配置策略的全球布局以实现区域经济套利和人口红利套利,注重储备基金的责任投资导向、凸显养老金绿色投资功能的改革建议。     

房产税税率、房产税收入与房地产税制度设计

基于房产税税率对房产税收入影响理论,运用数理模型,依据沪渝两市自然数据,考量房产税税率变化对房产税收入的影响.结果显示:房产税税率对房产税收入具有重要影响.若提高上海市房产税税率,房产税增收效果更明显;若下调重庆市房产税税率,房产税增收效应更显著.鉴于此,未来房地产税立法改革思路:一是坚持房地产税税负不增加;二是平衡好房地产税立法与其他收费制度的关系;三是统筹税制改革的协同推进;四是兼顾房地产税的地方财政属性;五是谨慎推进.同时,应遵循税收法定原则、地方财政原则、公平原则、确实原则、渐进原则和结构性调整原则.此外,在制度设计方面,纳税人的设计要体现财产税性质,征税范围要涵盖农村,课税对象要包括存量住房,税率要体现差异性,计税依据要由市场价格评估值确定,税收优惠要兼顾免税面积和特殊人群.     

Commercial Real Estate Return Performance: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper investigates the return performance of publicly traded real estate companies. The analysis spans the 1984–1999 time period and includes return data on over 600 companies in 28 countries. The return data reveal a substantial amount of variation in mean real estate returns and standard deviations across countries. Moreover, standard Treynor ratios, which scale country excess returns by the estimated beta on the world wealth portfolio, also reveal substantial variation across countries in excess real estate returns per unit of systematic risk. However, when we estimate Jensens alphas using both single and multifactor specifications, we detect little evidence of abnormal, risk-adjusted returns at the country level. We do, however, find evidence of a strong world-wide factor in international real estate returns. Furthermore, even after controlling for the effects of world-wide systematic risk, an orthogonalized country-specific factor is highly significant. This suggests that real estate securities may provide international diversification opportunities.     

Asymmetric Risk Measures and Real Estate Returns

Rational investors distinguish between extremely high and extremely low returns. The measures of investment risk should reflect such asymmetric risk perception. This study presents six asymmetric risk metrics and empirically tests their abilities in explaining the cross-sectional variations of real estate returns. It finds strong evidence that systematic downside risk is associated with a risk premium, and skewness provides significant explanatory power to the variation of cross-sectional property returns. On the other hand, co-skewness does not explain real estate returns well and is not a good systematic risk measure.     

Home bias and Dutch pension funds’ investment behavior

Using a panel data set of more than 600 Dutch pension funds (PFs) between 1992 and 2006, we investigate asset allocation behavior of Dutch PFs across multiple asset classes. We find that domestic investments, also known as home bias, in portfolio choices of Dutch institutional investors have fallen. We also find that the introduction of the euro, the dot-com crisis (1999–2001) and individual PF's characteristics are significant determinants of home bias. Overall, mature PFs’ portfolios are diversified internationally, whereas large PFs seem to prefer to only scale up their foreign, less-risky positions at the expense of domestic fixed-income positions. The effect of the dot-com crisis is more pronounced for domestic bonds, whereas the introduction of the euro was more important for domestic equities.     

Investing for the Long-run in European Real Estate

We calculate optimal portfolio choices for a long-horizon, risk-averse investor who diversifies among European stocks, bonds, real estate, and cash, when excess asset returns are predictable. Simulations are performed for scenarios involving different risk aversion levels, horizons, and statistical models capturing predictability in risk premia. Importantly, under one of the scenarios, the investor takes into account the parameter uncertainty implied by the use of estimated coefficients to characterize predictability. We find that real estate ought to play a significant role in optimal portfolio choices, with weights between 12 and 44%. Under plausible assumptions, the welfare costs of either ignoring predictability or restricting portfolio choices to traditional financial assets only are found to be in the order of 150–300 basis points per year. These results are robust to changes in the benchmarks and in the statistical framework.      

中小企业集合年金计划研究

中国企业年金市场已初具规模,但中小企业的计划参与率仍很低。为扩大中小企业年金计划覆盖面,发达国家和地区大多建立起了集合年金计划。中小企业建立集合年金计划可以获得多方面优势,是我国中小企业的现实选择。当前我国金融机构通过不同的运营合作模式开始探索建立起各类集合年金计划,然而受中小企业自身特性的局限和我国企业年金体制中现存问题的制约,当前我国迫切需要进一步建立和完善中小企业集合年金计划。     

International Equity Asset Classes in the Turkish Fund Industry

We examine Turkish fund portfolios and identify the role of international investments in their formation. We find that (1) Turkish funds hold a very small fraction of international assets during 1987-2008, (2) the weight of international equity in the funds with an international mandate is smaller than the total weight of domestic asset classes as of 2009, and (3) international stock holdings of Turkish portfolio managers show significant similarity, which can be explained by the fact that the managers tend to hold stocks with which they are familiar. We compare the performance of funds that have the international investment objective with benchmark portfolios and provide suggestions for more diverse funds in the Turkish fund industry.     

Office Capitalization Rates: Real Estate and Capital Market Influences

Focusing on the office capitalization rate, the central objective of this article is to shed light on two sets of issues that have not yet been fully researched. The first involves the importance of local-fixed and time-variant components of the office capitalization rate, and the significance of persistence in its time trends. The second centers on the relative importance of local office markets and the national capital market in shaping the various components of the office capitalization rate. Extensive econometric analysis of capitalization-rate series employed to address these issues highlights the existence of both local fixed and time-variant effects, while indicating differential persistence of time trends across markets. Moreover, such analysis uncovers the pivotal role of specific local office-market traits and the lesser role of national capital-market features in determining office capitalization-rate variations. Such findings on the role of local influences may provide a richer foundation for asset valuation and investment practices.     

Credit Availability and Asset Pricing Dynamics in Illiquid Markets: Evidence from Commercial Real Estate Markets

This article examines credit frictions and asset pricing in public and private markets with varying liquidity. We find that a tightening in credit availability is negatively related to subsequent price movements in private and public commercial real estate markets. Assets trading in illiquid segments of these markets are also susceptible to a feedback effect whereby changes in asset prices predict subsequent changes in credit availability. Controlling for investor demand, our findings suggest credit constraints play an economically significant asset pricing role in markets that are both highly levered and relatively illiquid.     

Economic Risk Factors and Commercial Real Estate Returns

A great deal of research has focused on the links between stock and bond market returns and macroeconomic events such as fluctuations in interest rates, inflation rates, and industrial production. Although the comovements of real estate and other asset prices suggests that these same systematic risk factors are likely to be priced in real estate markets, no study has formally addressed this issue. This study identifies the growth rate in real per capita consumption, the real T-bill rate, the term structure of interest rates, and unexpected inflation as fundamental drivers or state variables that systematically affect real estate returns. The finding of a consistently significant risk premium on consumption has important ramifications for the vast literature that has examined the (risk-adjusted) performance of real estate, for it suggests that prior findings of significant abnormal returns (either positive or negative) that have ignored consumption are potentially biased by an omitted variables problem. The results also have important implications for dynamic asset allocation strategies that involve the predictability of real estate returns using economic data.     

Net Asset Value Discounts for Asian-Pacific Real Estate Companies: Long-Run Relationships and Short-Term Dynamics

This study investigates the time series behavior of real estate company net asset value discount/premium (NAVDISC) in eight Asian-Pacific securitized real estate markets from 1995 to 2003. We postulate that if there is a stable NAVDISC for real estate companies in the long-run, then there should be a long-run cointegrating relation between their stock prices (Ps) and net asset values (NAVs). Employing panel data cointegration econometrics that comprises three approaches; panel unit root test, heterogeneous panel cointegration test and dynamic panel error-correction modeling (ECM), we find that long run NAVDISCs persist in individual Asian-Pacific securitized real estate markets and the regional market. All the NAVDISCs exhibit mean reversion and that the respective disequilibrium errors fluctuate around the mean values. Moreover, NAV is an important factor that statistically explains the price variations in real estate stock prices regardless of their speed of mean-reversion in the NAV discount /premium.     

资产价格波动的通货膨胀预期效应——基于房地产市场的实证分析

通过对房地产市场的实证研究,证实了资产市场资产价格的变化会影响到人们对未来经济形势的判断,进而影响到公众对未来消费品市场价格的判断,根据“预期自我实现”的原理,会对实际的通货膨胀或者通货紧缩产生影响。研究表明,房地产市场价格走势对通货膨胀预期的影响,要大于房地产市场资金变化对通胀预期的影响,所以监管层要管理好通货膨胀和通货膨胀预期,就要加强对资产市场尤其是房地产市场的监控,防止房价的大起大落。     

Consistency of UK Pension Fund Investment Performance

Transition matrix techniques are used to relate the past and present performance of pension fund portfolios. In particular, funds are ranked to study the tendency of portfolios to remain in the same quartile of the ranking as they were in the previous period. For raw returns, funds in both of the top quartiles are found to be more likely to remain in the same quartile than would be expected by chance. This result can be taken as limited evidence for the consistency of performance. Similar systemic effects are observed on a risk-adjusted basis. There appears to be clear evidence that some fund managers can offer a degree of consistent good performance.     

Pension Funds and Emerging Markets

This paper focuses on the investment behavior of pension funds in developed and emerging market countries. First, it analyzes the main determinants of the emerging market asset allocation of pension funds in developed countries. Second, it assesses how pension funds in emerging markets have contributed to the development of local securities markets. Third, it analyzes the determinants of pension funds' investment performance. The paper concludes with a discussion of why the emerging market asset allocation of pension funds in developed countries is likely to increase and what the challenges faced by pension funds in emerging markets are.     

信贷与资产价格关系研究——来自中国房地产市场的证据

货币政策与资产价格之间的关系一直以来都是学术界研究的重点,但从房地产信贷视角分析房地产价格的文献却相对较少。本文基于多元MGARCH—BEKK模型和GRACH均值方程模型分析了房地产信贷、货币供应量与房地产价格的波动相关性以及它们的各种波动对房地产价格的影响。研究发现,房地产信贷增长的波动能影响房地产价格的增长,而货币供应量的波动,对房地产价格增长影响不显著。同时实证分析显示在对房价的调控中,房地产信贷的调控是抑制房价波动的一个工具选项。以银行信贷为主的货币供应量已经不能全面反映社会的流动性状况。与货币供应量相比,社会融资总量指标与实体经济指标的联系更加紧密。     

物业税开征对房地产市场的影响效应分析

由物业税的税负归宿理论剖析入手,通过建立相关模型,可对目前市场上两种描述物业税开征以后开发成本或房价下降的前景有代表性的方案加以实证测算,并按照物业税等价替代成本下降部分的原则,在采用辅助变量法的基础上,建立一个自回归分布滞后模型,从而进一步了解物业税税率的改变对商业物业租金价值变化带来的影响.