Concerns about potential bailouts following adverse financial performances are
particularly germane to developing countries, since Easterly, Islam, and Stiglitz (1999)
show that such economies typically experience higher volatility than developed ones.
The higher financial volatility in developing economies could be attenuated by allowing
individuals to invest in foreign assets. If such investments were appropriately chosen, the
returns should then be independent of outcomes in their own country -- insulating the
individuals from the effects of higher domestic volatility. But this approach raises a
number of sensitive issues. For example, in the presence of endogenous growth elements
or any differential between social and private returns to capital, investing abroad is not
necessarily equivalent to investing at home. If pension savings are invested abroad, the
country benefits from the private return to capital in foreign markets, but does not
necessarily capture the full potential social return. This effect could thus provide a policy
rationale for limiting foreign investments.
Finally, the likelihood of a bailout of individual accounts may be heightened in
post-socialist economies that had engaged in voucher privatizations. In such voucher
privatizations, shares in large and medium-sized companies were sold in exchange for
vouchers. Since the normal fiduciary rules to be listed on a public stock exchange were
bypassed by many firms undergoing privatization, shares in these firms are illiquid.
Voucher investment funds, which were organized as intermediaries for the voucher
privatizations, hold most of the illiquid shares. Pension reform schemes in these
countries may have the effect of transferring illiquid shares from the voucher funds to
pension funds. Such a transfer may benefit the voucher funds, but could also necessitate
a government bailout of the pension funds should the illiquid shares prove to be worth
less than their current "market price." To be sure, the pension reforms are often touted
as "deepening the stock market." Yet they may ultimately merely reallocate losses from
one set of funds to another -- and in a potentially regressive fashion.
Myth #10: Investment of public trust funds is always squandered and mismanaged
Another myth is that public trust funds are always squandered or mismanaged.
As Estelle James has written, "…data gathered for the 1980s indicate that publicly
managed pension reserves fared poorly and in many cases lost money -- largely because
public managers were required to invest in government securities or loans to failing state
enterprises, at low nominal interest rates that became negative real rates during
inflationary periods."
Several points are worth noting here. The first concerns the nature of the capital
market. If capital markets were perfect, then it would simply not be possible (apart from
corruption or a failure to diversify the portfolio across a sufficient number of assets) for
funds to be badly invested. Efficient markets ensure that returns are commensurate with
risk, as long as the investment portfolio is sufficiently diversified. Given efficient
markets, those that accuse the government of investing poorly therefore must be accusing
the government either of corruption, or of choosing a portfolio that does not correspond
to the risk preferences of pensioners. With respect to the latter, little evidence is typically
presented.
Furthermore, as Stiglitz shows in a series of papers, if individuals can "undo" the
public fund portfolio by adjusting their own portfolio risk, public financial policy --
including how the government invests its trust funds -- is irrelevant. The assumption
of perfect capital markets is not entirely convincing, especially in many developing
countries. But then the opportunities for uninformed investors to make mistakes or to be
exploited are increased. Furthermore, even in the presence of imperfect capital markets,
the government may choose to invest in a more restricted class of assets than are
generally available because the social returns from such restrictions justify any costs. For
example, public authorities may legitimately decide that an embargo on investments in
South Africa during the apartheid regime was a reflection of broader social goals.
Similarly, as discussed above, restrictions on foreign investments may be socially
beneficial if social and private returns to capital diverge sufficiently or if other
differences between domestic and foreign investment obtain (e.g., if endogenous growth
is spurred more from domestic investment than foreign investment).
Averting the Old Age Crisis noted that real rates of return on many public trust
funds were negative during the 1980s. But that information alone does not tell us much:
we would like to know how the real rate of return on the trust fund compared to other
investments, after controlling for risk. Figure 3.7 in Averting the Old Age Crisis only
offers one such comparison: