New papers from the Social Science Research Network

"Closing the Retirement Savings Gap: Are State Automatic Enrollment IRAs the Answer?"
George Mason Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2016-2017

KATHRYN L. MOORE, University of Kentucky College of Law
Email: kmoore@pop.uky.edu

Drawing on insights from behavioral law and economics, automatic enrollment IRAs are intended to address the nation’s retirement savings gap by taking advantage of workers’ inertia. Although automatic enrollment IRAs were initially intended to apply at the federal level, they have gained little traction at the federal level, and states have begun to step into the breach. Between September 2012 and June 2016, five states enacted state automatic enrollment IRA programs.
Studies have uniformly shown that workers are more likely to participate in an automatic enrollment 401(k) plan than in a traditional opt-in 401(k) plan. Proponents of state automatic enrollment IRAs point to this experience to contend that state automatic enrollment IRAs are an answer, or at least a partial answer, to increasing retirement savings in this country. The efficacy of such programs, however, raises more complicated and nuanced questions. This article identifies the fundamental as well subsidiary and sometimes overlapping questions they raise. It then offers important insights on how to address the many issues these questions implicate.

"Life Cycle Investing and Smart Beta Strategies"

BILL CARSON, BlackRock, Inc
Email: bill.carson@blackrock.com
SARA SHORES, BlackRock
Email: sara.shores@blackrock.com
NICHOLAS NEFOUSE, BlackRock, Inc
Email: Nick.Nefouse@BlackRock.com

In traditional life cycle models, the equity-bond glide path shifts investment allocation from riskier assets to relatively safer assets as investors approach retirement. In this paper, we develop a smart beta glide path which seeks to take advantage of broad, persistent patterns within asset classes to identify securities with higher risk-adjusted returns than the market. Within equities, investors can shift from return-enhancing strategies — like value, momentum, size, and quality — to risk-reducing strategies like minimum volatility as they move through their life cycles. Adopting smart beta glide paths may improve Sharpe ratios by up to 20% over a standard equity-bond glide path.