General Trends in Competition Policy and Investment Regulation in Mandatory Defined Contribution Markets in Latin America

Dayoub, Mariam ; Lasagabaster, Esperanza

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ASSET ALLOCATION;    ASSET CLASS;    ASSET CLASSES;    ASSET MANAGEMENT;    ASSET MANAGERS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4720
RP-ID  :  WPS4720

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Following Chile's pension reform in1981, a wave of multi-pillar pension reforms took place inLatin America (LAC). Their implementation has revealed newpolicy challenges. To shed light on these issues, this paperreviews the structure and performance of mandatory DCpillars in LAC. The review highlights three importantpoints. First, it suggests overall positive outcomes fromreforms in the LAC countries that implemented multi-pillarpension systems. There is, however, scope for increasingefficiency. Second, management fees have declined but remainrelatively high whereas decreases in operational costs haveonly been partially passed through to consumers reflectinginadequate competition. Limits on transfers and relatedmeasures have been ineffective in curtailing management feesbut created new barriers to entry. In recent years, a fewcountries in LAC introduced or are in the process ofintroducing a combination of new measures that focus moredirectly on the two root causes of inadequate competition -the inelasticity of demand to fees and selective eliminationof barriers to entry by facilitating unbundling of services.These new measures show some promise. Third, thepaper's review indicates that a greater diversificationof pension fund portfolios in LAC appears to be necessary.Portfolio concentration owes to the adoption of strictquantitative investment regulations, underdeveloped capitalmarkets and volatile macroeconomic environments. A gradualrelaxation of these restrictions is now in progress inseveral countries. Regulators have become more conscious ofthe costs imposed by such regulations and macroeconomicconditions have improved. Greater overseas diversificationseems inevitable given the development stage of localcapital markets.