Managing Japan’s public pension reserve

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) has $1.4 trillion in assets and is the world’s largest pension fund. The institutional structure and the investment style of GPIF differ from those of other public pension reserve funds. This article describes how GPIF is structured and how it works,then compares it with Canadian and American public pension reserve fund approaches. Perspectives include the discretion exercised in investment decisions, information asymmetry, and accompanying agency and governance problems. 

Read Managing Public Pension Reserve Funds from the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management.

The author, Nobusuke Tamaki, teaches at Otsuma Women’s University in Tokyo and is the former director general of the planning department at Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund.