28 March 2019
Support the IFoA’s research work on behavioural finance
The IFoA’s Actuarial Research Centre is sponsoring academic research into the behavioural aspects of pension scheme decision-making. This could be significant for actuaries working in the areas of investment advice, asset-liability matching, liability-driven investments and investment risk management, within institutional investors, such as insurance companies and defined benefit pension schemes.
The objective of this research is to test whether the actual decisions made by organisations, as groups of individuals, are influenced by a wider set of factors, such as emotions, human psychology, company culture, corporate politics and conflicts of interest. This could provide a better tool kit for actuaries and other professionals in managing risks and making financial projections for these organisations. The expected output of this research is to explicitly draw out some of the key assumptions made about how institutions should behave rationally in certain scenarios and then test their validity. Practical recommendations will then be produced which actuarial investment practitioners could use in their work.
Complete our survey (closing 31 March) to take part in our research
Recognising the importance of this topic, the research consortium is looking to speak to investment advisers and consultants who work with trustees, about institutional decision making. We will be exploring topics such as working practices and culture, decision-making processes and types of decisions being made. The short, online research phase is the final stage of the research and will take around 15 minutes to complete.