Pension Fund Capitalism and Financial Crisis

Abstract: Basic public pension schemes and cut backs in earnings-related public pensions led to an increasing role of supplementary pensions such as pension funds for old-age incomes. In addition to demographic changes that challenge public pensions, private pensions face financial market risks. To what extent are the scope of pension fund capitalism and the impact of financial crises on pension funds related to different institutional arrangements? Given that different production regimes reflect different pension systems, we expect systematic diversities with regard to the public-private pension mix and the specific design of supplementary pensions. These varieties should be mirrored in different forms of vulnerability of pension funds tofinancial market crises. We hypothesize a higher scope of pension fund capitalism and vulnerability to financial market crises in countries with predominant market-based coordination mechanisms and short term strategies on financial markets (i.e. Liberal Market Economies).;