This dissertation studies underfunding in defined benefit (DB) pension plans and firms' contribution behavior, 401(k) plan participant investments in lifecycle funds under plan sponsors' initiative, and fund commonalities within mutual fund families. Responding to the recent decline in DB pension funding, firms have increased pension contributions to their underfunded plans. In the first essay I empirically examine firms' contribution behavior to underfunded DB plans and funding choice for pension contributions. I find that firms reveal different sensitivities of pension contributions to underfunding across aggregate funding levels. Furthermore, at a lower funding level firms have the greater sensitivity of pension contributions to underfunding and significantly utilize the tax deductibility of pension contributions. As for a funding choice to fund pension deficits, firms use debt financing at a low funding level, but utilize internal funding by decreasing capital expenditures at a lower funding level. Firms that use the debt financing are likely to have investment-grade credit ratings or high debt leverage, while firms that use the internal funding are likely to be high-levered ones. Recently lifecycle funds have rapidly grown in self-directed retirement plans. Despite the increasing popularity among plan sponsors and participants, there are few empirical studies on lifecycle funds. In the second essay, I examine the recent lifecycle fund adoption behavior of 401(k) plan participants from 2004 to 2006. I find that the likelihood of participants changing an investment strategy to adopt lifecycle funds is not significantly affected by participant demographic characteristics, but by participant account and plan design features. This study extends our understanding of 401(k) plan participants' investment behavior by finding (1) that the substitution of lifecycle funds for balanced funds, as well as the designation of lifecycle funds as a plan default, strongly affect participants' investments in lifecycle funds and (2) that balanced fund holdings of participants are negatively associated with their lifecycle fund investments. Mutual funds account for a significant portion of household financial assets and retirement assets. An understanding of characteristics of mutual funds is crucial to fund investors--especially those whose retirement nest eggs are in mutual funds. In the final essay, I examine the impacts of fund commonalities within mutual fund families on fund characteristics in terms of return residual correlations and fund operating expenses. As fund commonalities within a fund family, I focus on common stock holdings and common management of funds. I find that common stock holdings and an existence of a common manager of funds are positively related to return residual correlations, but negatively related to fund operating expenses. This finding suggests that when investors select low-cost equity funds within a family, they should be aware that there exists an investment risk that the fund commonalities that lower fund operating expenses may additionally increase return correlations of the funds. / Business Administration

隨著時間的發展，基金的種類與數量成倍數增長，導致投資人在挑選基金時，亦面臨了選擇股票時的窘境：投資標的數目過多、複雜度高，身陷其中，而不知如何挑選理想的投資組合。目前由於人們對於退休金的相關規劃愈益重視，遂有基金商品針對此概念來設計。 生命週期基金基本上符合這樣的概念，生命週期基金基本上是屬於一種組合型基金，但是並不一定要以組合型基金的型態來顯現，美國80只生命週期基金中將近半數為基金的基金。生命週期基金是為了滿足某個年份左右退休投資者的退休投資目標的基金，如FidelityFreedom系列、FrankRussell Life Points系列、T.Rowe PriceRetirement系列、Vanguard LifeStrategy系列等。例如FidelityFreedom2020是針對2020年左右退休的投資者設計的，為實現投資者退休的投資目標的基金，主要投資在Fidelity旗下股票型基金、債券型基金和貨幣市場基金等各類基金。我們便想要了解此種商品的投資型態下具有何種特色。 我們首先要探討基金在不同投資策略其表現如何，而我們衡量的方式---簡單的說是以是否能夠達到投資人的要求報酬率為基準，以投資報酬率來建構出年金終值，最後以各種投資策略所得到的最終價值之差距做為成本的衡量，之後我們則根據生命週期基金的樣態，自行設計出兩種投資模式同樣來探討不足要求資本的相關概念。 再來以投資聚集效果(pooling effect)為主題，因為在基金存在著不同風險容忍程度的投資人，所以我們希望探討在不同投資策略下所建構的效率前緣對於不同風險忍受程度的投資人是否具有超額報酬。 首先我們就兩種投資標的(股票、債劵)之投資報酬率變化以下列方式作設定---利用隨機模型(Stochastic Model)：並利用蒙地卡羅模擬的方式來建構投資標的之報酬率。 我們觀察不同的起始投資比重(股票資產權重考慮由0%~100%，間隔為1%，共101組；債券資產的權重則為1-股票資產權重，也就是100%~0%)，並以投資組合保險中三種常見的投資策略：買入持有(Buy & Hold；BH)、固定比例混合法(Constant Mixture；CM)及時間不變性投資組合保護(Time-invariant Portfolio Protection；TIPP)，作為投資策略。在完成對投資標的之報酬率變化及投資策略的設定後，就可以在三種投資策略及每個投資策略有101個起始權重下，得到303組不同的投資結果，如此我們就可以得到帳戶的最終價值，就可以針對是否符合投資者要求的報酬率做相關的研究。 同樣的我們可以就個別的投資策略建立個別的效率前緣。之後我們就不同風險容忍程度的投資大眾，以Harry M.Markowitz等人所提出的optimal frontier的概念加以設定風險點(risk point) ，各種不同風險程度的投資人即代表不同的風險點，如此我們便可以就不同的投資模型來探討基金的投資聚集效果(pooling effect) 。 最後我們想探討的部分則是希望讓投資大眾知道如果其處於何種經濟體之下，應該採用何種投資方式，或者是在投資人的不同要求之下，可以知道採取何種投資策略，以求學術上的操作可以應用到實務上，並求取更佳的效果。 / With the development of time, the kind and quantity of the fund become multiples to increase, cause investors to face the awkward situation while choosing the stock when they select funds: There is too much figure of the investment object marking investment complexity more diffcult , and does not know how to select ideal investment combination. Nowdays, people put emphasize on retirement plan more and more. so some mutual funds are designed for this concept. Lifecycle fund is identical to this concept .Lifecycle fund is a kind of Fund of Funds basically, but might not appear like the Fund of Funds , 80 Fund of Funds in U.S.A. nearly half appear like Fund of Funds . Lifecycle fund is for the fund of retired investors' retired investment needs which is different from age-changed , such as Fidelity Freedom series, Frank Russell Life Points series , T.Rowe Price Retirement series , Vanguard Life Strategy series ,etc.. For example Fidelity Freedom2020 is designed for pensioner's investor to retire about 2020 year, the fund that in order to realize the goal of investors when they retired, make an investment in many objectives, such as stock fund ,bond fund and money market fund ,etc. under command of Fidelity mainly. I want to know the characteristic of lifecycle fund and based on this concept to design mutual fund. I will discuss behavior of fund in different investment strategies, and the way which we measure ---It is to set the rate of returns by meeting investor's requirement as the datum, build and pay the end value of the annuity to construct by investing in the rate of returns, for the measurement of " bankrupt " with the disparity of the final value got of various kinds of investment strategies , later I designed two kinds of investment ways according to the concept of lifecycle fund and also discuss the concept of " bankrupt ". This research will also make emphasize on pooling effect , There are a lot of investors of different risk tolerance in the fund ,so I hope to discuss investor of different risk tolerance will have abcdrmal return under different efficiency frontier which are derived by different invest model and strategies. First, two kind investment target (stock, bond) Investment rate of returns by way of the following to settle ---Utilize Stochastic Mode: Wilkie investment model, Taiwan investment model and the rate of returns of the one that make use of simulation that build and construct investment terms. In each method, we will consider 101 different initial ratio of stock value and three different investment strategies: Buy & Hold(BH)、Constant Mixture(CM) and Time-invariant Portfolio Protection(TIPP).According to theses investment combination, I can construct different efficiency frontier under different investment models and strategies. Such final value of the account that we can receive so I can do relevant research to the rate of returns according with investor's request . Later, according to investor of different risk tolerance , set some risk point with the concept of optimal frontier published by Harry M.Markowitz, the investors of different risk degrees represent risk point, I can discuss pooling effect in fund under different investment model and strategies. Finally, the topic I want to discuss is let the investor know at which kind of economy , should adopt the investment strategies , or under investors' different requests, can know which kind of investment tactics are adopted , so that the operation on academy can be applied to the practice , and ask for better result.

Asset allocation is the most influential factor driving investment performance. While researchers have made substantial progress in the field of asset allocation since the introduction of mean-variance framework by Markowitz, there is little agreement about appropriate portfolio choice for multi-period long horizon investors. Nowhere this is more evident than trustees of retirement plans choosing different asset allocation strategies as default investment options for their members. This doctoral dissertation consists of four essays each of which explores either a novel or an unresolved issue in the area of asset allocation for individual retirement plan participants. The goal of the thesis is to provide greater insight into the subject of portfolio choice in retirement plans and advance scholarship in this field. The first study evaluates different constant mix or fixed weight asset allocation strategies and comments on their relative appeal as default investment options. In contrast to past research which deals mostly with theoretical or hypothetical models of asset allocation, we investigate asset allocation strategies that are actually used as default investment options by superannuation funds in Australia. We find that strategies with moderate allocation to stocks are consistently outperformed in terms of upside potential of exceeding the participant’s wealth accumulation target as well as downside risk of falling below that target by very aggressive strategies whose allocation to stocks approach 100%. The risk of extremely adverse wealth outcomes for plan participants does not appear to be very sensitive to asset allocation. Drawing on the evidence of the previous study, the second essay explores possible solutions to the well known problem of gender inequality in retirement investment outcomes. Using non-parametric stochastic simulation, we simulate iv and compare the retirement wealth outcomes for a hypothetical female and male worker under different assumptions about breaks in employment, superannuation contribution rates, and asset allocation strategies. We argue that modest changes in contribution and asset allocation strategy for the female plan participant are necessary to ensure an equitable wealth outcome in retirement. The findings provide strong evidence against gender-neutral default contribution and asset allocation policy currently institutionalized in Australia and other countries. In the third study we examine the efficacy of lifecycle asset allocation models which allocate aggressively to risky asset classes when the employee participants are young and gradually switch to more conservative asset classes as they approach retirement. We show that the conventional lifecycle strategies make a costly mistake by ignoring the change in portfolio size over time as a critical input in the asset allocation decision. Due to this portfolio size effect, which has hitherto remained unexplored in literature, the terminal value of accumulation in retirement account is critically dependent on the asset allocation strategy adopted by the participant in later years relative to early years. The final essay extends the findings of the previous chapter by proposing an alternative approach to lifecycle asset allocation which incorporates performance feedback. We demonstrate that strategies that dynamically alter allocation between growth and conservative asset classes at different points on the investment horizon based on cumulative portfolio performance relative to a set target generally result in superior wealth outcomes compared to those of conventional lifecycle strategies. The dynamic allocation strategy exhibits clear second-degree stochastic dominance over conventional strategies which switch assets in a deterministic manner as well as balanced diversified strategies.