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The 1/ Pension Investment Puzzle

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  • Heath Windcliff
  • Phelim Boyle

Abstract

This paper examines the so-called 1/n investment puzzle that has been observed in defined contribution plans whereby some participants divide their contributions equally among the available asset classes. It has been argued that this is a very naive strategy since it contradicts the fundamental tenets of modern portfolio theory. We use simple arguments to show that this behavior is perhaps less naive than it at first appears. It is well known that the optimal portfolio weights in a mean-variance setting are extremely sensitive to estimation errors, especially those in the expected returns. We show that when we account for estimation error, the 1/n rule has some advantages in terms of robustness; we demonstrate this with numerical experiments. This rule can provide a risk-averse investor with protection against very bad outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Heath Windcliff & Phelim Boyle, 2004. "The 1/ Pension Investment Puzzle," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 32-45.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:uaajxx:v:8:y:2004:i:3:p:32-45
    DOI: 10.1080/10920277.2004.10596151
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    Cited by:

    1. Jin Zhang & Dietmar Maringer, 2010. "Asset Allocation under Hierarchical Clustering," Working Papers 036, COMISEF.
    2. Boudt, Kris & Raza, Muhammad Wajid & Wauters, Marjan, 2019. "Evaluating the Shariah-compliance of equity portfolios: The weighting method matters," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 406-417.
    3. Eduardo Bered Fernandes Vieira & Tiago Pascoal Filomena, 2020. "Liquidity Constraints for Portfolio Selection Based on Financial Volume," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 56(4), pages 1055-1077, December.
    4. Tasca, Paolo & Mavrodiev, Pavlin & Schweitzer, Frank, 2014. "Quantifying the impact of leveraging and diversification on systemic risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 43-52.
    5. Gerrans, Paul & Yap, Ghialy, 2014. "Retirement savings investment choices: Sophisticated or naive?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 233-250.
    6. Philipp J. Kremer & Andreea Talmaciu & Sandra Paterlini, 2018. "Risk minimization in multi-factor portfolios: What is the best strategy?," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 266(1), pages 255-291, July.
    7. Charles Shaw, 2022. "Portfolio Diversification Revisited," Papers 2204.13398, arXiv.org.
    8. Yunker, James A. & Melkumian, Alla A., 2010. "The effect of capital wealth on optimal diversification: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 90-98, February.
    9. Nipun Agarwal, 2014. "How to obtain high returns with lower volatility in emerging markets?," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-16, December.
    10. Johannes Ruf & Kangjianan Xie, 2019. "The impact of proportional transaction costs on systematically generated portfolios," Papers 1904.08925, arXiv.org.
    11. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, 2019. "How much data do you need? An operational, pre-asymptotic metric for fat-tailedness," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 677-686.
    12. Chanwit Phengpis & Peggy Swanson, 2011. "Optimization, cointegration and diversification gains from international portfolios: an out-of-sample analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 269-286, February.
    13. Tasca, Paolo & Battiston, Stefano & Deghi, Andrea, 2017. "Portfolio diversification and systemic risk in interbank networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 96-124.
    14. Ruf, Johannes & Xie, Kangjianan, 2020. "Impact of proportional transaction costs on systematically generated portfolios," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 104696, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Oikonomou, Ioannis & Platanakis, Emmanouil & Sutcliffe, Charles, 2018. "Socially responsible investment portfolios: Does the optimization process matter?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 379-401.
    16. Paolo Tasca & Stefano Battiston, "undated". "Diversification and Financial Stability," Working Papers CCSS-11-001, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    17. Ardia, David & Boudt, Kris & Wauters, Marjan, 2016. "The economic benefits of market timing the style allocation of characteristic-based portfolios," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 38-62.

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