IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rza/ersawp/vy2022iid34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characteristics of the South African retirement fund industry

Author

Listed:
  • Neryvia Pillay
  • Johannes W. Fedderke

Abstract

Using administrative data, we examine the fund design and efficiency of the South African retirement fund industry over the period 1996–2018. Like many other countries, the retirement fund industry in South Africa is dominated by defined contribution funds. Total assets per member have been declining for defined benefit funds, which are now dominated by unclaimed benefit members. We find that South African retirement funds are not operating at an efficient scale. There are strong significant economies of scale present in the industry, with total administrative costs increasing by only 72% when the total number of fund members doubles. Preservation funds and retirement annuities are found to be most efficient and operating at an efficient scale. None of the benefit structures are operating efficiently but hybrid funds are the most efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Neryvia Pillay & Johannes W. Fedderke, 2022. "Characteristics of the South African retirement fund industry," ERSA Working Paper Series, Economic Research Southern Africa, vol. 0.
    • Handle: RePEc:rza:ersawp:v::y:2022:i::id:34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ersawps.org/index.php/working-paper-series/article/view/34/17
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rza:ersawp:v::y:2022:i::id:34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maggi Sigg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ersawps.org/index.php/working-paper-series/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.