Pension investment in China

Abstract

Abstract

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY Basic pension fund in China began investing in the capital market recently. This master's thesis describes pension investments' impact on the development of China's capital market. Based on existing literature, it is shown that if the pension investment has a positive effect on the capital market, capital market development will enhance overall economic development, and it can in turn increase pension output. This phenomenon can be used as evidence to support pension investment in China. Besides, I also explore the optimal asset allocation and make risk assessment of pension investment in China.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY Data consists of international and domestic historical data. It is extracted from International Financial Statistics, Knoema Data Statistic website, etc. International data in this thesis includes GDP, Market capitalization, Stock value traded, Inflation, Real rate of return for pension investment and Pension investment scope in 20 sample countries from 2005-2014. China's own historical data includes National Society Fund's investment scope, Market capitalization, GDP, Stock value traded and ROI on treasury bond, bank deposits, stock and enterprise bond from 2001-2014.

I use two methods to explore the relationship between pension funds and China's capital market. Main variables used for matching include PINVEST (pension assets under management/GDP), MCG (Total market capitalization/GDP), STG (Total stock value traded/GDP), Dummy variable, Inflation, Variation and ROI. I established a static OLS regression between PINVEST and MCG, PINVEST and STG in sample countries. And I use Granger Causality test to study pension investment impact on capital market in China. Besides, I apply portfolio theory to find optimal asset allocation and use Value at Risk method to make risk assessment.

FINDINGS OF THIS STUDY Pension funds impact on capital market development differs according to level of financial development. In those "high" financial development countries, pension funds' positive impacts are stronger. As China possesses "high" financial development, pension assets will contribute to capital market development. Meanwhile, I find out that pension investment in China Granger cause the development of capital market, this result provides further evidence to support basic pension fund investment. In addition, refer to risk tolerance of pension fund in America, it is optimal to limit the investment proportion of stock under 20%, invest the majority into enterprise bond and the rest into bank deposits at present in China. Under such asset allocation, there is 5% probability that loss will exceed 12.4% of total amount.