Pensions, retirement behaviour and financial fraud victimisation

Abstract: This thesis consists of four articles that explore pension investments and retirement behaviour.The first article investigates how pension communication affects the trading behaviour among pension savers. By using geographical variation in the timing of the distribution of information letters sent from the Swedish Pension Agency to savers, I show that pension information statistically significantly affects investors’ trading activity. Still, the letters’ economic relevance is limited due to low general engagement among the savers—however, those who respond to the letters by reallocating their portfolios benefit by having better portfolio performance and lower fees in the upcoming years.The second paper (co-authored with Johannes Hagen) studies exposure and reaction to financial fraud in one of the largest Swedish pension scandals, the Allra case. The third paper (co-authored with Johannes Hagen and Paul Nystedt) analyses the relationship between intelligence and fraud victimisation among investors in the six companies who have been thrown out of the Swedish Premium Pension System by the authorities for not acting in their clients’ best interest. The results of these two articles show that while individuals who end up in the fraudulent companies are not socioeconomically different from others, they are more likely to work with financial advisers, some of which steered them into these funds. More intelligent people are less inclined to invest in fund firms that turn out to be fraudulent, and if they do, they are more likely to divest from them after, but not before, the fraud has been revealed.Finally, the last paper addresses how grandparenthood shapes the labour supply for people who are close to retirement and its effect on the mobility of households. The results show a significant increase in the retirement of similar magnitude for both grandmothers and grandfathers when their first grandchild is born. Moreover, people who have a child become significantly more likely to move closer to their parents (i.e., the child’s grandparents).