A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF NIFTY 50 AND EQUITY FUNDS UNDER TIER-II OF NATIONAL PENSION SCHEME

The National Pension Scheme (NPS) is a defined contribution and a corporate pension fund that provides financial assistance to all Indian citizens. There are two types of accounts in the National Pension Scheme: Tier I and Tier II. Tier I is a mandatory deposit pension fund account and Tier II is a voluntary pension account. Tier I and Tier II is are consisted of different assets namely, equity, government security and alternative asset. The equity schemes are directly linked with the market. The return of all the fund managers in equity schemes are not same as the portfolio of all the fund managers are not same. Secondary data has been collected from respective websites of Pension Fund Managers and has been used to calculate mean, SD, Variance, and Correlation to predict the performance of equity funds. ANOVA and T-test have been for assessing the comparative analysis of the different fund managers under equity scheme in tier II. As per the study, LIC PF and ICICI PF are the best performer during the study period. The performance of SBI PF is poor among other equity funds under Tier-II of NPS during the study period. In term of risk, LIC PF is the higher risky equity fund and UIT PF is the lowest risky equity fund under Tier-II of NPS. It can be said that investors need to be high-risk taker to invest in that LIC PF. Through the risk analysis during said period of time, it is found that the ability to observe risk differs in equity funds under Tier-II of NPS. The main reason for this being a voluntary account of Tier -II. As there is no lock-in period in this account, the investors mostly use for a short-term purpose. In the recent decision of the government, Tier-II offers a lock-in period for 3 years with tax benefit. This decision may be affected the investment pattern of the investors. KEY WORDS: - National Pension Scheme, Performance, Equity Scheme, Nifty 50

Targeting PELP1 Attenuates Angiogenesis and Enhances Chemotherapy Efficiency in Colorectal Cancer

Abnormal angiogenesis is one of the important hallmarks of colorectal cancer as well as other solid tumors. Optimally, anti-angiogenesis therapy could restrain malignant angiogenesis to control tumor expansion. PELP1 is as a scaffolding oncogenic protein in a variety of cancer types, but its involvement in angiogenesis is unknown. In this study, PELP1 was found to be abnormally upregulated and highly coincidental with increased MVD in CRC. Further, treatment with conditioned medium (CM) from PELP1 knockdown CRC cells remarkably arrested the function of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) compared to those treated with CM from wildtype cells. Mechanistically, the STAT3/VEGFA axis was found to mediate PELP1-induced angiogenetic phenotypes of HUVECs. Moreover, suppression of PELP1 reduced tumor growth and angiogenesis in vivo accompanied by inactivation of STAT3/VEGFA pathway. Notably, in vivo, PELP1 suppression could enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy, which is caused by the normalization of vessels. Collectively, our findings provide a preclinical proof of concept that targeting PELP1 to decrease STAT3/VEGFA-mediated angiogenesis and improve responses to chemotherapy due to normalization of vessels. Given the newly defined contribution to angiogenesis of PELP1, targeting PELP1 may be a potentially ideal therapeutic strategy for CRC as well as other solid tumors.

Optimal portfolios for the DC pension fund with mispricing under the HARA utility framework

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>This paper studies the optimal portfolio selection for defined contribution (DC) pension fund with mispricing. We adopt the general hyperbolic absolute risk averse (HARA) utility to describe the risk performance of the pension fund managers. The financial market comprises a risk-free asset, a pair of mispriced stocks, and the market index. Using the dynamic programming approach, we construct the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation and obtain the explicit expressions for optimal portfolio choices with two methods. Finally, numerical analysis is presented to illustrate the sensitivity of the optimal portfolios to parameters of the financial market and contribution process. <b>200</b> words.</p>

COVID-19 The Global Pandemic: Learning & Take Out for National Pension System (NPS)

The SARS Cov-2 (Covid 19) pandemic has shaken the whole world; it has brought the business, education, industry, transport, communications, travel, hospitality almost all the economic activities to a standstill. Accordingly, it has adversely affected the financial markets and stock exchanges across the globe. The stock exchanges, may it be New York Stock Exchange, Dow Jones, London Stock Exchange, Nikkei, Bombay Stock Exchange or National Stock Exchange experienced an unprecedented plunge of 40 to 50% in a period few weeks. This new dynamic of volatility possesses serious questions about the market driven National Pension System (NPS) which endeavor to ensure smooth retirement life for Indian elderly. The volatility in security market will significantly impact the fund managers’ performance and accordingly the retirement benefit of the subscriber. This article has investigated the impacts of pandemic on fund manager’s risk returns profile. We have used three industry standard risk-adjusted returns parameters such as Sharpe ratio, Treynor Ratio and Jensen’s alpha to evaluate the performance of NPS pension fund managers selected under study. The study has also explored the learning from such unexpected crisis for the policy makers for future preparedness. On the basis of finding, it has suggested some measures for long run sustainability of schemes under NPS. Keywords : NPS, PFRDA, Defined benefit, Defined contribution, Pension fund managers, Risk adjusted returns, COVID-19.

Fair and balance rate for benefits not scheduled in defined contribution plans

ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to propose a methodology that, using multiple decreases, in addition to classified by actuarial profile and source of social security costs, calculates actuarially fair and balanced rates for unscheduled collective costing benefits from Defined Contribution (DC) pension plans. There are no studies in Brazil about costing rates for benefits not scheduled in pension plans of the DC modality. Any institution that pays collective cost social security benefits must determine an actuarial rate that is not insufficient, generating a financial imbalance in the fund, nor excessive, compromising the participant’s income. This work is the first study on costing rates for collective costing benefits from pension plans with DC modalities. Actuarially fair rates are obtained considering multiple decreases and equalizing the present value of contributions and the present value of pension and disability benefits, classified by actuarial profile and source of social security cost. The specific balance rate is determined for each source of social security costs and is obtained considering the actuarially fair rates for each actuarial profile. The general balance rate is obtained by the marginal contribution of each specific balance rate. The proposed methodology was used to calculate the rates of unscheduled benefits with collective costing in DC modality plans. The proposed methodology estimated that the legal changes, resulting from Constitutional Amendment 103/2019, indirectly increased by more than 4% the general balance rate of the unscheduled benefits of the Supplementary Social Security Foundation of the Federal Public Servant of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government (FUNPRESP-Exe).

Mortality by socio-economic class and its impact on the retirement schemes: how to render the systems fairer?

Many OECD countries have addressed the issue of increased longevity by mainly increasing the retirement age. However, this kind of reforms may lead to substantial transfers from those with shorter lifespans to those that will live longer than the average, as they do not necessarily take into account the socio-economic differences in mortality. The contribution of our paper is therefore twofold. Firstly, we illustrate how both a Defined Benefit and a Notional Defined Contribution pay-as-you-go scheme can put the lower social economic classes at a disadvantage, when compared to the actuarially fair pensions. In contrast to that, higher classes experience a gain. This is due to the fact that mortality rates per socio-economic class are not considered by either scheme. Consequently, we propose a model that determines the parameters for each scheme and class which would render the pensions fairer even when no socio-economic mortality differences are considered.

Sustaining the unsustainable? The political sustainability of pensions in Finland and the Netherlands

What makes a pension scheme sustainable? Most answers to this question have revolved around expert assessments of pension schemes’ affordability or adequacy. This study shifts focus from the financial or social sustainability of pension scheme designs to their political sustainability. Political sustainability refers to policymakers’ ability and willingness to sustain pension schemes in the face of perceived challenges. We seek to fill a key research gap concerning the political sustainability of pensions by highlighting the processes of parametric adjustment through which pension schemes are sustained. We show how capital, labour and state actors have been able to actively sustain collective defined benefit (DB) pension schemes in two coordinated market economies, Finland and the Netherlands. The two countries have managed to sustain their DB pensions for relatively long periods of time despite facing the same sustainability challenges that have motivated paradigmatic shifts in other pension systems. We find that sustaining has been successful thanks to a governance culture in which policymakers have been willing to keep all pension scheme parameters open for negotiation and an institutional context that made policymakers able to turn parametric pension reforms into power resources for further reforms. Our findings also explain recent changes in the Netherlands, which moved the Dutch system towards collective defined contribution pensions.

Pension and Active Ageing: Lessons Learned from Civil Servants in Indonesia

Many developing countries are currently facing an ageing population without sufficient preparation for old-age financial adequacy, an important component in active ageing. One question is whether a pension system can create old-age financial adequacy. At the same time, many countries are shifting their pension systems from a defined benefit to a defined contribution pension system to improve the welfare of older people while maintaining state budget sustainability. Indonesia is not an exception. This paper learns from civil servants in Indonesia, where the retirement payout from the existing pay-as-you-go, defined benefit system is meagre. The system is to be transformed into a defined contribution one. Using a simulation method, this paper examines whether the proposed system will provide a better retirement payout, which is higher than the minimum wage and will allow retirees to maintain their pre-retirement income. This paper concludes that the proposed system alone is not sufficient to create old-age financial adequacy and, therefore, is less able to contribute to active ageing. To improve the retirement payout, among other things, the retirement age should be raised and made optional, and the accumulated savings should be re-invested during the retirement period.