Managing Public Investment Funds: Best Practices and New Challenges

Olivia S. Mitchell, John Piggott, Cagri Kumru

NBER Working Paper No. 14078
Issued in June 2008
NBER Program(s):   AG   PE

Large publicly-held pools of assets are playing an increasingly prominent role in the global investment arena. We compare three distinct forms of such public funds, namely foreign exchange reserve funds, sovereign wealth funds, and public pension funds, to highlight their differences and similarities. We review previous studies on ways to better secure prudent and economically sound public fund management practices in these funds, as well as how to evaluate their governance and investment policies and how to better protect the assets from political interference. Drawing from the pension and corporate finance literature, we also link their management to governance practices and country-specific characteristics, and contrast those with empirical findings on linkages with corporate governance.

(193 K)

The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.

Published: Mitchell, Olivia S. & Piggott, John & Kumru, Cagri, 2008. "Managing public investment funds: best practices and new questions," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(03), pages 321-356, November.

This paper is available as PDF (193 K) or via email.

This paper was revised on December 5, 2011

Acknowledgments

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX