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The 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.

The 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.

The 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.

Based 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.

Consistent 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.

This 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.

The extant literature has established that industry-specialist auditors gain performance-enhancing industry-specific sub-specialty knowledge (e.g., Solomon, Shields, & Whittington, 1999) via training and on the job experience. This knowledge has been shown to allow specialists to outperform non-specialists on a range of industry-specific tasks. The current study extends this line of research by comparing and contrasting the relative performance gains enjoyed by industry-specialist auditors in two different industry settings, one regulated and the other unregulated. When specializing in regulated industries, auditors gain very detailed industry-specific knowledge which is not the case for specialists in unregulated industries (Dunn & Mayhew, 2004). By comparing industry-specialists to non-specialists with matching industry-based experience, this study measures the relative benefits of specialization in different industry settings, rather than the benefits of specialization per se, which has been well established in the literature. This study finds that the performance gains made by regulated industry-specialists significantly outweigh those made by unregulated industry-specialists on industry-specific tasks. The implications of these results for future research and practice are explored in the body of the chapter.

The cost-to-asset ratio is a vital efficiency ratio for any financial institution, as it measures its operating expenses to its asset base. This study uses this ratio to evaluate the efficiency of defined benefit pension plans (DBPPs) in the Republic of Congo using financial and macroeconomic indicators.

Under the financial indicator, the authors apply vector autoregression (VAR) to a dataset covering 120 months from 2011 to 2020. In addition, the authors use 12 years of data from 2009 to 2020 and the random effects model under macroeconomic indicators.

Assets and costs together Granger cause the efficiency of the DBPP. However, there is no Granger causality from the combination of assets and costs on the DB public and industry PP efficiencies. The random effects model results show that macroconnect level variables significantly lower the cost-to-asset ratio, thereby improving the PP's efficiency. Macrodisconnect level variables significantly increase the cost-to-asset ratio, thereby deteriorating PP efficiency.

The study is limited to a developing economy in sub-Saharan Africa, which may hinder the generalization of the results. Future studies could use panel samples from sub-Saharan Africa so that inferences could be drawn for the continent and comparisons made with others.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first in sub-Saharan Africa to assess the efficiency of DBPPs using financial and macroeconomic indicators.

The focus of the case is on the concepts of customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer equity (CE). Monitoring, measuring and maximizing CLV and CE have become a key priority for all marketers. Instructors can introduce these concepts and its key components.

The main focus of the case is a quantitative assignment that asks students to analyze the convenience for the existing five AFPs (Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones, Pension Fund Administrator) of winning the tender. The use of CLV and CE measurements is particularly relevant. Students need to estimate the impact of pricing on the CLV and CE of the existing five AFPs.

BA, MSc, MBA Courses: CE, Marketing Metrics, Pricing. The case can also be used in courses that focus on Marketing Plan, Marketing Research or Services Marketing.

In early 2009, Valentina Vial was given the assignment to develop the pricing strategy of Alianza to enter the pension industry. The company will propose a commission fee to compete with the country's existing five AFPs. Whichever AFP presents the lowest commission will be awarded the tender. When there are several competitors, the company must guess each competitor's likely pricing decision. In the analysis of the convenience for the existing five AFPs of winning the tender, the use of CLV and CE measurements is particularly relevant. Valentina Vial needed to estimate the impact of pricing on the CLV and CE of the existing five AFPs.

Understand the concepts of CLV and CE and the importance of maximizing a customer's lifetime value for the firm by calculating the CLV and the CE based on a combination of financial and non-financial data.

Illustrate the importance of adopting a long-term strategic perspective (using CLV and CE) in choosing a pricing strategy. Once a firm commits to a pricing strategy, it is difficult to shift course. Given this, the choice of pricing levels should be informed by long-term strategic thinking, including consideration of potential competitive pricing decisions.

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Although neo‐classical economics has undoubtedly driven the global pension privatization reform agenda, it does not provide an adequate framework for the reform of retirement income protection. Indeed, it poses salient decision risks for policy‐makers because of its naturalist epistemology and agency ontology, which deny both the value of hermeneutic knowledge and the existence of structural imperatives. When confronted with the challenge of income maintenance for those in retirement, policy‐makers must necessarily tackle strategically important, values‐laden questions. This requires them to engage in policy discourses that are informed by competing welfare ideologies. Reflecting these discourses, national governments have adopted three reform approaches to public pension privatization. All are consistent with values of community solidarity, social cohesion and citizenship rights, which are seen by national governments to be preferable to the values that underpin neo‐classical economic analysis, namely, individual responsibility, freedom of choice and contractual rights.

Issues associated with retirement in general, and phased transitions into retirement in particular, are taking on increased importance for a variety of reasons. Outlines those reasons, paying particular attention to the practice of mandatory retirement. Presents age dependency ratios for the OECD to highlight the importance of these issues in the context of an ageing and longer‐lived workforce relative to a smaller working age population. Then discusses the prevalence of mandatory retirement in Canada and the USA, and presents empirical evidence from Canada on variables associated with retiring because of mandatory retirement. The Canadian case is of particular interest, because mandatory retirement in Canada has generally not been banned, which is in marked contrast with the situation in the USA, where it has been banned as constituting age discrimination. The public and legal debate over the issue of mandatory retirement has also been extensive in Canada, and this debate may provide information for other countries dealing with the issue. Ends with an assessment of the extent to which mandatory retirement exerts a constraining influence on transitions into retirement. The essential argument is that its constraining impact is not as simple as it may initially appear. To the extent that mandatory retirement is an intricate part of the compensation and human resource function of firms, banning it can have important implications for those functions and, in turn, for transitions into retirement. The complexities of these issues and dramatically increasing old‐age dependency ratios will ensure that this is an area of growing importance for public policy and human resource management.

The purpose of this paper is to study the sensitivity of provident fund investors to past performance and how market conditions, changes in risk and liquidity levels influence the net flows into provident funds by using a unique sample from Israel.

The study checks the impact of different levels of fund performance on provident fund flows using three alternative proxies for performance: raw return and the risk adjusted returns based on the Sharpe ratio and the Jensen’s α. The analysis relies on the time fixed effect and fund fixed effect regression models.

Results reveal that there exists an approximately concave flow–performance relationship and performance persistence among Israeli provident funds. Israeli provident fund investors are risk averse so they overreact to bad performance both in bull and bear markets. Moreover, liquidity is an important factor to influence the flow–performance curve. The investors’ strong negative response to poor performance and relative insensitivity to outperformance show that provident fund managers are not rewarded for their risk-shifting activities as in mutual funds.

The authors explore the behavior of investor flows in non-institutional retirement savings funds specifically outside of the USA, which is a topic not properly investigated in literature. Moreover, examining inflows and outflows separately gives the authors a richer understanding of investors in pension schemes. This study also enhances the understanding of the impact of fund liquidity on the flow–performance relationship for the retirement funds segment.

The UK is one of the few countries in Europe that is not facing a serious pensions crisis. The reasons for this are straightforward: state pensions are among the lowest in Europe, the UK has a long‐standing funded private pension sector, its population is ageing less rapidly than elsewhere in Europe and its governments have, since the beginning of the 1980s, taken measures to prevent a pension crisis developing. This article reviews the policies that have been implemented over the last two decades. It describes and analyses the defects in the Thatcher‐Major governments’ reforms that brought us to the current system, examines and assesses the reforms of the Blair government, and then identifies the problems that remain unresolved and how they might be addressed. Concludes with an examination of the implications of these reforms for the future of occupational pension schemes.

The concept of maximizing “employee voice” is examined in VW66 (see page 51) which looks at the various techniques which organizations use to provide this facility which may take the form, for example, of collective bargaining or a grievance procedure. Installing formal processes for employees to be heard appears to be on the increase, ranging from mandatory work councils which are a feature of many western European countries, to the various voluntary mechanisms which predominate in the USA.