Mutual Fund Investing Through Employer-Sponsored Pension Plans: Investor Knowledge and Policy Implications
Document Type
Article
Publisher
Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
Abstract
The flow of cash funds from employer-sponsored pension plans into mutual funds has been an important driving force behind the mutual fund industry's unprecedented recent growth. The increased attractiveness of mutual funds to pension investors is due to a shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans, to changes in the tax laws, and to the growing recognition of certain types of mutual funds as suitable long-term investment vehicles. Accompanying the tremendous growth in defined contribution plans, however, has been a shift in investment risk from employers to employees. Using the responses from a nationwide telephone survey of 2,000 mutual fund shareholders, this paper analyzes various characteristics and investment knowledge of purchasers of mutual funds through employer-sponsored pension plans. The results show that overall, pension investors are as knowledgeable about the costs, risks, and returns associated with mutual funds as investors who purchase mutual funds through other distribution channels. However, when dividing the sample of pension-plan investors into two subsamples consisting of those who purchase mutual funds solely through the pension channel and those also employing other distribution channels, pension-channel-only investors are found to be significantly less knowledgeable.
Comments
Published by Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd. in Managerial Finance, volume 23 issue 7, 1997. Bryant users may access this article here.