Review of the Swedish National Pension Funds

Severinson, Clara; Stewart, Fiona

doi:10.1787/5k990qtkk6f8-en

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 7 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…In some countries, such as Canada and Sweden, national pension funds are allowed to invest surpluses in private instruments such as bonds and equities (OECD, 2016;Severinson and Stewart, 2012;Tedesco and Shecter, 2016). In the United States, however, the Treasury is forbidden to invest surpluses in the private economy because that looks like Socialism.…”

Section: Are the Trust Funds "Real"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term budgeting: A cautionary tale from U.S. experience

White¹

2018

OECD Journal on Budgeting

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There is a growing tendency, among central budget-makers and commentators, to argue budgets should be made for the long-term, rather than the traditional annual budget. This tendency is especially strong in the United States, where it has become virtually a conventional wisdom. This article explains, first, why that approach fits very poorly with most of the goals of budgeting. It then evaluates U.S. experience with approximations of long-term budgeting of three types: i) medium-term limits on discretionary spending, ii) the Social Security programme, and the iii) Medicare programme. That experience illustrates the reasons why long-term budgeting would not be a positive reform. They include the fantastical nature of many long-term forecasts, strong incentives for both deception and self-deception about the effects of planned budget totals, and ignoring the basic task of budgeting, which is to reconcile preferences about policy details to preferences about budget totals in a way that considers each. JEL Codes: H11, H41, H50, H68

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Section: Are the Trust Funds "Real"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term budgeting: A cautionary tale from U.S. experience

White¹

2018

OECD Journal on Budgeting

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“…Public pension funds have grown over the years and provide new possibilities for humanizing the economy and make it more sustainable [3]. They are thus in the position to affect the norms and the practical rationale of the financial market and seem increasingly prone to do so in relation to sustainable development goals [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. However, there is still limited understanding of the significance and potential of these changes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In reviewing previous empirical studies in the area of public pension funds and ethical investment, it can be concluded that many of them have adopted comparative case-study designs [4][5][6][7][8][9], while a few exclusively focus on one national setting [5,10]. Furthermore, most of the examined studies employed various kinds of qualitative methods with some exceptions [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability in Public Pension Funds? A Longitudinal Study of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish AP Funds

Boudin¹,

Olsson

2021

Sustainability

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Are public pension funds taking sustainability values into serious consideration? This question is addressed by analyzing annual reports of The Council on Ethics in the Swedish public pension system, which has a clear mission from The Swedish Government to consider sustainability values. The council was established in 2007 and supports four funds with advice. This article studies empirically how the council’s expression of words connected to different values has changed over time as well as how it practically reasons in situations of value conflicts. The quantitative data shows that words indicative of “sustainability values” have considerably increased. As a contrast, the critical discourse analysis shows that the council often reasons in a general, loose way about preferable solutions, while more practical claims for action are largely lacking or are vague in relation to sustainable development. The underlying rationale is very much in line with the discourse of economic rationalism. Thus, the quantitative findings suggest an emerging sustainability discourse, while the qualitative analysis clearly indicates that an economic rationale continues to underpin the council’s practical reasoning. However, it is concluded that this is not a simple case of green washing documents but rather a slow train moving towards green institutional change.

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