Why Pension Investors and Asset Managers Differ

Perhaps one of the puzzling aspects of the investment industry is that pension funds and asset managers seem to get along so well. In the past years, the costs and complexity of trustees’ investments has been steadily rising. So have the incomes of asset managers, their advisors and other intermediaries, despite the fact that asset managers have not been able to fulfill expectations of investment returns. Pension funds and asset managers clearly do stifle innovation in products and services and progress in new investment concepts. In this chapter, we demonstrate these striking difference. But first, we look into why they are different – what economists refer to as the principal–agent problem.