Corruption, Governance, and Public Pension Funds
Abstract
We examine the effects of state corruption as well as political and governance factors on U.S. public pension funds. We find that pension funds in states with more corruption have lower performance; a one standard deviation increase in corruption is associated with a decrease in annual returns of at least 14 basis points, and this relationship is robust to state-level and pension-level fixed effects. Pensions located in more corrupt jurisdictions also invest a larger fraction of their assets in equities. We find that having a new treasurer decreases the negative effects of corruption, suggesting that more frequent changes in administrations are beneficial in corrupt jurisdictions. Governance-related variables and political affiliation variables are by themselves not significantly related to pension returns, although these variables are associated with differences in asset allocation.
Recommended Citation
Zhang, H., Guo, L., & Hao, M. (2018). Corruption, Governance, and Public Pension Funds. Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, 51(4), pp. 883-919. Springer Verlag.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-017-0691-4
Department(s)
Business and Information Technology
Keywords and Phrases
Corruption; Governance; Politics; Public pensions
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0924-865X
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2018 Springer Verlag, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Nov 2018
