Pension Funds - Articles & White Papers

This white paper is the fourth in a five-paper series. It introduces a radical new perspective on equities, thinking of them as one would of any high-end consumer good. This change in perspective enables us to demonstrate that income inequality is a hidden driver of equity prices, and also allows us to…

Against an increasingly uncertain backdrop, the Fed have continued to tighten aggressively, clear in their commitment to return inflation to target. Domestically, economic activity is softening as higher rates slow growth, and the risk of recession has increased. However, we believe that any recession, if there is one, will…

Investors face a complex backdrop due to rising interest rates, high inflation and market volatility, creating a challenging environment to generate sustainable income, and causing a strain on one’s finances. This year’s Retirement Survey & Insights Report, Navigating the Financial Vortex: From Retirement Readiness to…

The Global Pension Assets Study estimates global pension fund assets across 22 major pension markets (the P22). These geographies now total a record US$56.6 trillion in pension assets and account for 76% of the GDP of these economies. The study, conducted by WTW and the Thinking Ahead Institute since the 1990s, includes an…

Institutional portfolios such as corporate pension plans are increasing allocations to illiquid private assets seeking better returns and diversification. However, as allocations increase, a portfolio’s liquidity structure changes, sometimes abruptly. How can a CIO increase their confidence with private asset allocations and…

The key theme of this year’s report, the ‘S’ pillar of ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, is highly pertinent. As politicians and policy makers across the world aim to ‘build back better’, Create-Research and DWS believe they need to take the time to fully understand the social part of ESG.

In a world of low return expectations and even lower interest rates, pension plans are re-evaluating their portfolios, looking for alternative ways to achieve return targets and improve funded status. Diversifying portfolios with real assets helps address these challenges. Real assets may reduce portfolio volatility, enhance…

This year’s Retirement Survey & Insights Report highlighted the challenges that working and retired individuals face as they save and invest for their retirement, especially in today's environment. The report shared detailed insights on prominent retirement trends experienced by generation and outlined potential…

Pension plans are facing a perfect storm. Central banks have been raising interest rates rapidly in response to rampant price pressures but higher inflation will likely persist in the new regime. Such monetary policy tightening will cool down economic growth and, in some cases, trigger economic recession. It is also making…

The challenges of investing in illiquid private assets while also facilitating member switching and early release schemes are addressed in a new PGIM IAS framework to help CIOs examine how to adjust asset allocations when faced with differing levels of early access permissioning.

Advances in technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning are radically reshaping winners and losers across the service sector in both developed and emerging markets – and at an even faster pace after the Covid-19 pandemic. To understand the investment implications of this next revolution…

Is your plan cash-flow negative? Is it underfunded too? This paper breaks down alternative cash-flow sources – equipped to serve short- and long-term funding needs. Explore the potential benefits of a cash-flow-driven investment (CDI) framework that includes cash-flow-aware growth assets – especially those with an explicit…

Dimensional Fund Advisors study the performance of different investment and spending strategies for retirement. Investment strategies include wealth-focused glide paths that combine equities with short-term, high-quality fixed income. They also consider an income-focused glide path that combines a moderate equity allocation…

Nuveen examines ways corporate pension plans at all funding levels can optimize their approach to portfolio construction and identifies how factor exposures and asset allocations shift when applying a factors-first approach.

The Global Pension Assets Study covers 22 major pension markets (the P22), which now totals US$52,522 billion in pension assets and account for 80% of the GDP of these economies. The study includes an analysis of the seven largest markets (the P7) which includes Australia, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, UK and US…

Every quarter, our Content Team curates a unique list of the best asset manager salary surveys from around the world, providing our members with information on benchmark salaries for investment management professionals. These fund manager salary surveys cover a wide variety of roles within the asset management industry,…

This is the second year that DWS has sponsored this report by CREATE-Research. Amongst other insights, this year’s survey confirms the on-going movement of passive investment into the mainstream with 66% of survey respondents considering passive index investing as a mature part of their portfolio.

The Asset Owner 100 is a Thinking Ahead Institute study which gathers data on the total assets of the top 100 asset owners around the world. Though not included in the ranking, the study also presents the total assets for the top 10 insurers and the top 10 foundations and endowments.