Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
2010
Abstract
As one of the oldest and largest national mandatory defined contribution pension systems, Singapore's Central Provident Fund (CPF) permits employees to invest their retirement accumulations in a variety of investment instruments rather than leaving them in a government-managed investment fund. Many plan participants avail themselves of this opportunity, selecting from a menu of more than 200 `included' funds that satisfy specific admission criteria set by the CPF Board. Nevertheless, many other funds are excluded from the list of eligible retirement system investments. This article shows that the `included/non-included' screening criteria have been effective, in that included fund managers earned higher average returns, demonstrated better stock-picking and displayed better market-timing skills, than their excluded fund counterparts. In addition, the included funds exhibited stronger persistence in performance, though they offered marginally lower diversification benefits to plan participants.
Discipline
Finance and Financial Management
Research Areas
Finance
Publication
Pensions: An International Journal
Volume
15
Issue
4
First Page
276
Last Page
286
ISSN
1478-5315
Identifier
10.1057/pm.2010.29
Citation
KOH, Seng Kee, Benedict and Mitchell, Olivia S..
What's on the menu? Included versus excluded funds for Singapore's central provident fund investors. (2010). Pensions: An International Journal. 15, (4), 276-286.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3005
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1057/pm.2010.29