Business Commons^™

Collective Investments For Pension Savings: Lessons From Singapore's Central Provident Fund Scheme, Benedict S. Koh, Olivia S. Mitchell, Joelle H. Y. Fong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Singapore's mandatory national defined contribution pension system permits participants to invest their retirement savings in a wide range of investment instruments if they wish, rather than leaving their savings in Central Provident Fund (CPF) accounts to earn interest rates by default. This article asks whether workers seeking to earn higher returns can expect to do better than the CPF-managed default, by moving their money into professionally managed unit trusts. We use historical data to investigate whether fund managers possess superior stock picking and market timing skills, as well as whether they exhibit persistence in performance and offer diversification benefits to …