Who Starts a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund and Why?

Bird, Ron; Foster, David H.; Gray, Jack; Raftery, Adrian; Thorp, Susan; Yeung, Danny

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2853885

Cited by 4 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We report the numeracy, financial literacy, and psychological trait inventories and scores of respondents in Supplement A. Average scores of current and former SMSF members are not statistically significantly different from each other on any of these measures and are also similar to the population of non-SMSF superannuation fund members reported by Bird et al. (2018).…”

Section: Survey and Samplementioning

confidence: 90%

“…We developed a list of 16 proposed objectives based on results from Bird et al (2018). These were then put to respondents in sets of four.…”

Section: Fund Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If they comply with rules that restrict leverage and in-house assets, SMSF members are largely free to design and implement any investment plan for their personal retirement savings. For many reasons, but primarily because of the autonomy they offer, numbers of SMSFs have grown over the past 2 decades (Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), 2018; Bird et al., 2018). Although the rate of increase in SMSFs has slowed recently, they now number more than 590,000, include more than 1 million members, house more than one-quarter of Australia’s $2.78 trillion superannuation assets, and make up the largest segment of the superannuation industry, by number of funds and assets (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), 2019; Australian Taxation Office (ATO), 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, instead of reviewing the investments and performance of the SMSF sector (see Arnold et al, 2017;Mackenzie, 2011;Phillips et al, 2007;Valentine, 2011), we studied the attitudes and experiences of members to better understand their initial surge and subsequent waning popularity. Our approach builds on the earlier study by Bird et al (2018) that looks into reasons for starting a SMSF; here, we aim to understand the attitudes of members to the ongoing operation of their funds and the degree to which their experiences meet expectations. Third, our sample includes both current and former SMSF members-the latter being a group largely omitted by earlier studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Experiences of current and former members of self-managed superannuation funds

Thorp

Bird

Foster

et al. 2020

Australian Journal of Management

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We surveyed 854 current and 147 former members of self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) in 2016. The results of our survey document their aspirations, operational practices and experiences. Both current and former members expressed high general interest in superannuation, but ‘detractors’ of SMSFs outnumbered ‘promoters’. SMSF members said they enjoy ‘control’ of investment, but a majority delegated tasks to financial professionals. Three times as many members rated the performance of their fund as above the SMSF average as below, although most did not measure the performance of their fund adequately. The probability of closing a SMSF is significantly higher if members use net returns, rather than other indicators such as account balance, to judge performance. JEL Classification: H55, H75, J32

show abstract

Section: Survey and Samplementioning

confidence: 90%

“…We developed a list of 16 proposed objectives based on results from Bird et al (2018). These were then put to respondents in sets of four.…”

Section: Fund Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Experiences of current and former members of self-managed superannuation funds

Thorp

Bird

Foster

et al. 2020

Australian Journal of Management

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thirdly, social influences that are not always considered by economists matter to activity and sometimes dominate instrumental factors (Croy et al ., , ). Fourthly, activity and interest are highly complementary – people who make some active decisions tend to make more (Dobrescu et al ., ) and this is particularly noticeable for members of SMSFs, who remain highly interested in superannuation in general, even after they have wound up a fund (Bird et al ., ,b). Fifthly, commentators confound low interest and other motives: many members stick to defaults because they reason that they are not sufficiently skilled to choose investments or funds for themselves, not because they do not want to control their assets (Butt et al ., ).…”

Section: Households and Superannuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Superannuation in Australia: A Survey of the Literature

Kingston

Thorp

2018

Economic Record

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2017 Australian superannuation assets stood at 148 per cent of GDP, or $2.5 trillion in absolute terms. This was the world's fourth largest pool of retirement savings, a remarkable outcome over 25 years of the operation of the Superannuation Guarantee. We survey the local academic, industry and policy literature on the economics of superannuation during the last quarter of a century. Topics include the policy debate, the positive, normative and behavioural economics of household interaction with superannuation, and the structure, conduct and performance of the superannuation industry. We encourage further research into effective tax rates, the need to hedge human capital and the automation of financial advice.

show abstract

Cognitive functioning, financial literacy, and judgment in older age

Gerrans¹,

Asher

Earl

2021

Accounting & Finance

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We investigate the relationships between financial literacy, financial judgment, and cognitive ability at older ages. We find people who actively manage their own retirement savings portfolios display greater levels of financial literacy and judgment than those who do not. We identify the different cognitive processes underlying financial judgment and decision-making tasks versus those underlying learned concepts such as basic financial literacy. Although these decline at different rates the latter may potentially compensate for, and mask declines, in the former. We find an overall low propensity to seek financial advice which has no significant relationship with cognitive functioning. Our findings underscore the importance of monitoring cognitive ability in older ages.

show abstract

Who Starts a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund and Why?

Cited by 4 publications

References 7 publications

Experiences of current and former members of self-managed superannuation funds

Experiences of current and former members of self-managed superannuation funds

Superannuation in Australia: A Survey of the Literature

Cognitive functioning, financial literacy, and judgment in older age

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About