The Annuity Puzzle and an Outline of Its Solution

In his seminal 1965 paper, Yaari showed that, assuming actuarially fair annuity prices, uncertain lifetimes, and no bequest motives, utility-maximizing retirees should annuitize all of their wealth on retirement. Nevertheless, the markets for individual immediate life annuities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and several other developed countries have been small relative to other financial investment outlets competing for retirement savings. Researchers have found this situation puzzling, hence the so-called “annuity puzzle.” There are many possible explanations for the annuity puzzle, including “rational” explanations such as adverse selection, bequest motives, and incomplete markets; and “behaviorial” explanations, such as mental accounting, cumulative prospect theory, and mortality salience. We review the literature on the various plausible explanations given for the existence of the annuity puzzle, suggest ways of stimulating the demand for annuities, and suggest a few of the ingredients needed for further development of hybrid annuity products that may provide a solution to the puzzle.     

Extended performance reporting: an examination of the Australian mining industry

Recent accounting scandals and a greater focus on sustainable development have highlighted the insufficiency of traditional financial statements in providing information about company value and performance. This study argues for the importance of reporting both IC information and non-economic performance. Based on an Extended Performance Reporting Framework, content analysis was conducted to examine the voluntary reporting practices within the annual reports of selected Australian mining companies. Results show that the sample companies tended to place greater emphases on IC information than non-economic performance information. The study provides a research opportunity, examining why the samples chose to report or not report various reporting elements.     

Regulator performance,regulatory environment and outcomes: An examination of insurance regulator career incentives on state insurance markets

In this paper we test whether the past or future labor market choices of insurance commissioners provide incentives for regulators in states with price regulation to either favor or oppose the industry by allowing prices that differ significantly from what would otherwise be the competitive market outcome. Using biographical data on insurance regulators, economic and state specific market structure and regulatory variables, and state premium and loss data on the personal automobile insurance market, we find no evidence consumers in prior approval states paid significantly different “unit prices” for insurance than consumers in states that allow competitive market forces to determine equilibrium prices during the time period 1985–2002. We do, however, find evidence regulators who obtained the position of insurance commissioner by popular election and those who seek higher elective office following their tenure as insurance commissioner allow higher overall “unit prices” relative to competitive market states. The “unit price” of insurance in regulated states is not statistically different from the competitive market outcome for regulators that make lateral moves back into state government and it is mildly higher for regulators who enter the insurance industry following their tenure. Finally, we find some evidence regulators who describe themselves as consumer advocates are successful reducing the price of insurance in favor of consumers in regulated markets. Overall the results are consistent with the existence of asymmetric information in the regulatory process that agents use to enhance their career aspirations.     

Cost of Equity and S&P 500 Index Revisions

We examine how the cost of equity changes when firms are added to or removed from the S&P 500 Index during index revisions. Newly added firms experience a significant decline in the cost of equity, while recently removed firms show a significant increase. Liquidity improves for addition firms and declines for removed firms. Addition firms also experience a decline in shadow cost. Changes in cost of equity for included firms are explained by changes in liquidity, shadow cost, and firm size. Finally, included firms with greater investment opportunities benefit more from the reduction in cost of capital.     

Performance of Enhanced Index and Quantitative Equity Funds

We examine the performance of enhanced index and quantitative equity funds. Both types of funds use quantitative models in investment selection. Enhanced index funds set an explicit objective to outperform a benchmark index. Proponents of quantitative funds argue that their management style takes human emotions out of the investment decision‐making process and leads to more objective stock selection. We find evidence of outperformance by quantitatively managed growth funds, especially those investing in small cap stocks.     

Circuit Breakers and the Tail Index of Equity Returns

Using the tail index of returns on U.S. equities as a summarymeasure of extreme behavior, we examine changes in the equitymarkets surrounding the development of program trading for portfolioinsurance, the crash of 1987, and the subsequent introductionof circuit breakers and other changes in market architecture.Recently-developed tests for the null of constancy of the tailindex, versus the alternative of a change at an unknown date,permit inference on changes in extreme behavior over a longtime period while allowing for second-moment dependence in thereturn data. We find strong evidence of a decrease in the tailindex (increase in the probability of extreme events) aroundthe beginning of large-scale program trading, and weaker, butstill substantial, evidence of further significant change inthe tail index following the introduction of circuit breakers.Point estimates of the tail index suggest that the tail indexmay have roughly regained pre-program trading levels. More generally,the results tend to suggest that long samples of U.S. equityreturns should not be treated as samples from a single distributionfunction, particularly in examining extremes.     

Equity fund size and growth: Implications for performance and selection

Should individuals choose the largest or smallest equity funds for investment? This study explores the relationship of equity fund size to performance. Historical returns of large funds are found to be superior to their smaller peers. Yesterday's best performing fund's tend to become today's largest funds as individuals invest heavily in response to the communications about the fund's past success. But the findings suggest that, once large, equity funds do not outperform their peers. Especially for funds in aggressive growth objectives, the advantages of being small appear to outweigh the disadvantages. For individual investors wtih aggressive growth objectives, a strategy of investing in smaller funds may thus be wealth maximizing.     

The Informational Role of Option Trading Volume in Equity Index Options Markets

This paper examines the dynamic relations between future price volatility of the S&P 500 index and trading volume of S&P 500 options to explore the informational role of option volume in predicting the price volatility. The future volatility of the index is approximated alternatively by implied volatility and by EGARCH volatility. Using a simultaneous equation model to capture the volume-volatility relations, the paper finds that strong contemporaneous feedbacks exist between the future price volatility and the trading volume of call and put options. Previous option volumes have a strong predictive ability with respect to the future price volatility. Similarly, lagged changes in volatility have a significant predictive power for option volume. Although the volume-volatility relations for individual volatility and volume terms are somewhat different under the two volatility measures, the results on the predictive ability of volume (volatility) for volatility (volume) are broadly similar between the implied and EGARCH volatilities. These findings support the hypothesis that both the information- and hedge-related trading explain most of the trading volume of equity index options.     

Is Index Performance Achievable? An Analysis of Australian Equity Index Funds

This article examines the performance of index equity funds in Australia. Despite the significant growth in index funds since 1976, when the first index mutual fund was launched in the U.S., research on their performance is sparse in the U.S. and non-existent in Australia. This study documents the existence of significant tracking error for Australian index funds. For example, the magnitude of the difference between index fund returns and index returns averages between 7.4 and 22.3 basis points per month across index funds operating for more than five years. However, there is little evidence of bias in tracking error implying that these funds neither systematically outperform nor underperform their benchmark on a before cost basis. Further analysis provides evidence that the magnitude of tracking error is related to fund cash flows, market volatility, transaction costs and index replication strategies used by the manager.     

Goal‐efficacy framework: an examination of domestic and international accounting students' academic performance

This study considers the psychological influences on academic performance using a goal‐efficacy framework. Data were gathered using a survey questionnaire (N = 375). The paper is motivated by a repeated high failure rate for a second‐year core accounting unit and anecdotal evidence that international students perform poorly in comparison with domestic students. The results demonstrate the role of self‐regulated learning strategy as a mediating variable for goal orientation and academic performance. While the analyses suggest no significant differences between domestic and international students with respect to the main psychological variables and academic performance, further analyses reveal that four specific factors of the main psychological variables are significantly different between domestic and international students.     

The information content of portfolio performance history and persistence in fund performance: An examination of rollover funds

This paper examines the relation between past and future performance and explores the optimal past performance information set for a subset of Australian investment funds, namely, rollover funds. Four categories of funds are examined: fixed interest; multi-sector yield; multi-sector balanced; and multi-sector growth. This study extends the performance persistence literature through the use of three methodologies (1) regression analysis;(2) non-parametric contingency tables; and (3) top (and bottom) quartile rankings to explore the information content of fund performance history for groups of funds differentiated by investment objective. The results of the regression analysis suggest that there is evidence in support of persistence in performance for the fixed interest funds (particularly when performance is measured in terms of Jensen Alpha) but much more ambiguous evidence in relation to the multi-sector funds. Contingency table analysis of fund performance histories of varying lengths reveals quite different results depending upon whether raw or risk-adjusted returns are used. Use of raw returns creates an overall impression of performance reversals, whereas use of risk-adjusted returns suggests the existence of performance persistence. Finally, the use of prior period top-quartile and bottom-quartile ranking are found to show strong evidence of persistence in respect to the risk-adjusted performance of fixed-interest funds.     

国内企业年金市场发展状况分析

自2005年4月<企业年金试行办法>(以下简称20号令)和<企业年金基金管理暂行办法>(以下简称23号令)等有关企业年金的法规制度正式颁布以来,企业年金市场历经制度确立、机构认定、多方推动、企业自醒等过程,到2007年底已经有3.2万个企业建立了企业年金计划,参加员工人数929万,总规模达1519亿元.     

基于个税递延政策的企业年金保障水平研究

国家明确以税收优惠的形式鼓励和引导企业和个人参加企业年金计划,并于2014年实施了个税递延政策。基于指标模型构建和数据模拟,本文对我国企业年金在个税递延政策实施前后的保障水平进行了比较,通过参数敏感性分析考察了投资收益、工资增长、退休年龄和缴费比例等因素的影响。研究发现,实施个税递延政策后企业职工的养老保障水平在较大程度上低于政策实施前,但不同性别、不同收入水平和不同缴费比例的企业职工保障水平降低的程度有所差异。收入水平和缴费比例越高的男性职工,个税递延政策实施后保障水平降低的幅度越高,但对女性职工而言,这种影响要弱一些。进一步,可以通过增加投资收益、延迟退休年龄和提升缴费比例等方法来提高企业职工的养老保障水平,这与目前正在进行的一系列改革方向也一致。     

企业年金风险监管的主要环节与政策框架

我国企业年金运营模式复杂,年金市场涉及金融机构类型众多,风险监管尤为重要。首先要加强信用风险监管,保证相关利益主体的相对独立性,注重投资风险和运行的公平。监管机构应当加强主动监管,推动协同监管框架的创新尝试,加强监管主体之间以及其自身部门之间的信息沟通,重点监管关联交易及其可能带来的风险。     

Post-crisis regulatory reforms and bank performance: lessons from Asia

Based on a large dataset from eight Asian economies, we test the impact of post-crisis regulatory reforms on the performance of depository institutions in countries at different levels of financial development. We allow for technological heterogeneity and estimate a set of country-level stochastic cost frontiers followed by a deterministic bootstrapped meta-frontier to evaluate cost efficiency and cost technology. Our results support the view that liberalization policies have a positive impact on bank performance, while the reverse is true for prudential regulation policies. The removal of activities restrictions, bank privatization and foreign bank entry has a positive and significant impact on technological progress and cost efficiency. In contrast, prudential policies, which aim to protect the banking sector from excessive risk-taking, tend to adversely affect banks’ cost efficiency but not cost technology.     

企业年金之中外比较

企业年金制度起源于发达国家,充分借鉴别国的企业年金发展经验对发展我国的企业补充养老保险制度也就有着特别的意义。     

The Simple Analytics of a Pooled Annuity Fund

This article provides a formal analysis of payout adjustments from a longevity risk‐pooling fund, an arrangement we refer to as group self‐annuitization (GSA). The distinguishing risk diffusion characteristic of GSAs in the family of longevity insurance instruments is that the annuitants bear their systematic risk, but the pool shares idiosyncratic risk. This obviates the need for an insurance company, although such instruments could be sold through a corporate insurer. We begin by deriving the payout adjustment for a single entry group with a single annuity factor and constant expectations. We then show that under weak requirements a unique solution to payout paths exists when multiple cohorts combine into a single pool. This relies on the harmonic mean of the ratio of realized to expected survivorship rates across cohorts. The case of evolving expectations is also analyzed. In all cases, we demonstrate that the periodic‐benefit payment in a pooled annuity fund is determined based on the previous payment adjusted for any deviations in mortality and interest from expectations. GSA may have considerable appeal in countries which have adopted national defined contribution schemes and/or in which the life insurance industry is noncompetitive or poorly developed.     

绩效考核系统的成功开发与应用

为了进一步完善银行柜员绩效考核系统,逐步形成具有农业银行特色的人力资源激励与约束机制,农业银行山西省分行从业务发展的战略高度出发,本着"主动服务、创新管理"的科技发展理念,用近一年的时间,成功开发了柜员绩效考核管理系统。这对于提升该行网点工作效率、改进对外服务质量、树立良好窗口形象、实现员工个人价值,有着非常重要的现实意义。     

年金基金的投资组合：理论、模型与实践

企业年金在我国处于变革和发展的关键时期，未来巨量资金的投资组合问题值得关注。本文回顾了西方养老基金投资领域的研究文献，无论是税收套利模型还是对养老金收益担保公司的看跌期权模型，都不能解释现实。国际经验研究表明，企业年金的投资组合和发起企业的经营活动现金收益率有密切关系。本文提出了一个考虑发起企业的经营活动现金回报率之后的年金组合理论模型，分析了当前我国行业年金、地方企业年金以及保险公司经办年金等三类年金的投资组合情况，并提出了相关政策建议。     

Beyond Age and Sex: Enhancing Annuity Pricing

This paper examines the use of more extensive risk classification and its impact on annuitisation values in consumer markets with mortality heterogeneity. Prices of U.S. retail annuities do not currently reflect buyers’ attributes other than age and sex. I qualitatively assess a number of proposed underwriting factors and show that the factors chosen can robustly predict mortality heterogeneity in a hazards framework. The relative value of annuities across demographic groups converges considerably under finer-grained pricing, but the change in consumers’ well-being is asymmetric. Shorter-lived annuitants gain about 30 per cent in financial and utility-adjusted terms, whereas longer-lived annuitants experience losses of 16 per cent.