This paper examines the impact of land ownership on farm-level investment and investment risk (variability) in Indian agriculture using nationally representative survey data. The study adopts a flexible moment approach with White’s heteroscedasticity consistent standard error method. Results reveal that land ownership intensity significantly augments on-farm investment and reduces its variability. Other variables like family head’s education, access to irrigation, technical advice, credit and nonfarm income have significant inducement effects on-farm investment. We also observe that farmers’ education, age, irrigation, technical advice, MSP awareness and commercialization reduce farm investment risk. Findings have important policy implications for Indian land tenancy

We report a study of the effects the choice set on financial decision making related to retirement savings and risky investment. The participants were presented with either a full range of choice options or a limited subset of the feasible options. The choices of saving and risk are affected by the position of each option in the range of presented options. This result demonstrated that the range of the options offered as possible saving rates and levels of investment risk influences decisions about saving and risk. The study was conducted on a sample of working people, and we controlled whether the participants can financially afford in their real life the decisions taken in the test. In addition, various measures of risk aversion did not account for the risk taken in each condition. Surprisingly, only the simplest and most direct risk preference measure was a significant predictor of the responses within a particular choice set context, although the actual choices were still very much influenced by the range. Thus, the results reported here suggest that financial judgments and choices are relative, which corroborates, in an important practical domain, previous related work with abstract gambles and hypothetical risky investments.

The term ‘investment risk’ is often used loosely, and frequently confused with the notion of short-term price volatility, particularly for equity instruments. For the long-term investor, however, what is most apposite is the ability to meet future real cash flows as they become due. This paper addresses the concept of economic fundamentals of long-term investment, the objectives of long-term investors (and how these differ from those of short-term investors), the notion of real value shortfall risk, what is meant by an investor’s risk capacity (as opposed to risk appetite) and liquidity management considerations. Subsequently, some of the constraints and barriers to appropriate risk measurement and management are considered, in particular the regulatory and behavioural biases that are overlaid on fundamental asset/liability management. Various alternative approaches to measuring risk, and their appropriateness for purpose, are outlined, in the hope of further informing the discussion and thereby helping to accelerate productive change.

The move from defined benefit to defined contribution (DC) has transferred the longevity and investment risks from the plan sponsor to the individual plan member. Without the actuarial cross-subsidies implied by pooling these risks, the danger of outliving one’s savings is significant. Much attention has been focussed on pre-retirement investment design but less on post-retirement. In most countries, the post-retirement systems in place are insufficient to solve this challenge for small asset sizes or small proportions of individuals’ retirement accounts. However, a number of DC markets are mature, such as Australia and Chile, and the principles of a solution that works for all must be identified. This paper researches a number of post-retirement systems around the world and identifies ten key factors that contribute to post-retirement solution design. These factors can result in an inconsistency between countries regarding the most appropriate post-retirement solution. Additionally, a disconnect is apparent between what retirees need and want in post-retirement. Successful post-retirement solutions will inevitably blend investment and insurance components in a balanced manner. With lengthening life expectancies, research supports strategies that blend a growth and income account-based approach for the first 15–20 years after retirement with longevity protection in later life.

The UK has seen a significant transition from Defined Benefit (“DB”) to Defined Contribution (“DC”) for occupational pension saving. The planned automatic enrolment program starting in 2012 is expected to increase the use of DC. The main features of DC are that investment risk falls onto the individual during the pre-retirement phase and that there are no guarantees as to investment returns or the level of pension. In July 2012, Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, challenged industry to think hard about meeting the need for more certainty about pension savings in DC plans and to consider providing an affordable ‘Money Safe’ guarantee where the member would get back at least the nominal value of their contributions (individual, employer and tax relief). This paper explores whether this is viable for the mass market.

This paper analyzes the framework of German participating payout life annuities (PLAs), which offer guaranteed minimum benefits as well as participation in insurers' surpluses. We show that the process of sharing surpluses between shareholders and policyholders follows transparent and consistent rules. Subsequently, we develop an asset-liability model for a stylized German life insurer that offers PLAs to evaluate benefit variability and insurer stability given stochastic mortality and capital market developments. Our results suggest that guaranteed benefits can be provided with high credibility via PLAs, while, at the same time, annuitants receive attractive money's worth ratios. Moreover, we show that it might be difficult to offer a fixed benefit annuity providing the same lifetime utility as a PLA for the same premium and a comparably low insolvency risk. Overall, PLA schemes may be an efficient way to deal with risk factors that are highly unpredictable and difficult to hedge over the long run, such as systematic longevity and investment risks.

A formal definition of investment risk in actuarial investigations is given. Case studies estimating the investment risk associated with different investment strategies for defined benefit pension funds using historic market data are presented. It is shown that a few decades ago, when bond markets only extended in depth to 20-year maturities, the investment risk of investing in equities was of the same order of magnitude as the investment risk introduced by the duration mismatch from investing in bonds for immature schemes. It is shown that now, with the extension of the term of bond markets and introduction of strippable bonds, the least risk portfolio for the same pension liability is a bond portfolio of suitable duration. It is argued that investment risk voluntarily undertaken in defined benefit pension plans has grown markedly in recent decades, at a time when the ability to bear the investment risk has diminished. Investment risk in pension funds is quite different to investment risk for other investors, which leads to the possibility that current portfolios are not optimised — that is, there exist portfolios which increase the expected surplus without increasing risk. The formalising of our intuitive concept of investment risk in actuarial applications is a first step in the identification of more efficient portfolios.