Chilean Pension Fund Management Industry: How Much Does it Earn and How Much Should it Earn?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-88702016000200004Keywords:
Chilean Pension Fund Administrators (AFP), AFP’s industry profits, competitionAbstract
Over more than two decades, both experts and the public have considered that profits earned by Chilean Pension Fund Administrators (AFP for its acronym in Spanish) are excessively high. However, there is little known about how much the industry should earn in equilibrium. In this paper, I show that the 25.4% return on equity (ROE) earned by the AFP industry over 2006-2015 was 4.8 times as high as the 5.3% that can be explained by its exposure to market risk. In monetary terms, out of the US$ 4.4 billion earned by the AFP industry over the last decade, nearly $ 3.5 billion can be considered as “excessive”.
Downloads
References
Berstein, S., & Cabrita, C. (2007). Los determinantes de la elección de AFP en Chile: Nueva evidencia a partir de datos individuales [The determinants of AFP choice in Chile: New evidence from individual data]. Estudios de Economía, 34(1), 53–72. https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-52862007000100004
Berstein, S., & Castro, R. (2005). Costos y rentabilidad de los fondos de pensiones: ¿Qué informar a los afiliados? [Costs and returns of pension funds: What to report to members?] (Documento de Trabajo 1). Superintendencia de Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones.
Berstein, S., & Ruiz, J. (2005). Sensibilidad de la demanda con consumidores desinformados: El caso de las AFP en Chile [Demand sensitivity with uninformed consumers: The case of the AFPs in Chile] (Documento de Trabajo 4). Superintendencia de Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones.
Fajnzylber, E., Plaza, G., & Reyes, G. (2009). Better-informed workers and retirement savings decisions: Impact evaluation of a personalized pension projection in Chile (Documento de Trabajo 31). Superintendencia de Pensiones.
Fama, E., & French, K. (2004). The capital asset pricing model: Theory and evidence. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(3), 25–46. https://doi.org/10.1257/0895330042162430
Lara, D., López, F., & Morgado, A. (2016). Fondos de pensiones: ¿Existe un líder en rentabilidad? [Pension funds: Is there a leader in returns?] (Documento de Investigación 315). Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad Alberto Hurtado.
Lintner, J. (1965). The valuation of risk assets and the selection of risky investments in stock portfolios and capital budgets. Review of Economics and Statistics, 47(1), 13–37. https://doi.org/10.2307/1924119
López, F., & Morgado, A. (2016). Devolución de comisiones: ¿Cuánto cuesta la equidad? [Refund of fees: How much does equity cost?]. Gestión y Tendencias, 1(3), 4–7.
McAfee, R. P., Mialon, H., & Williams, M. (2004). What is a barrier to entry? American Economic Review, 94(2), 461–465.
Reyes, G., & Castro, R. (2008). Medidas procompetencia de la reforma previsional [Pro-competition measures of the pension reform] (Documento de Trabajo 29). Superintendencia de Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones.
Sepúlveda, J. P. (2012). On the relationship between concentration and competition: Evidence from the Chilean private pension system. Applied Economics Letters, 19(14), 1385–1389. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2011.631879
Sharpe, W. F. (1964). Capital asset prices: A theory of market equilibrium under conditions of risk. Journal of Finance, 19(3), 425–442. https://doi.org/10.2307/2977928
Valdés, S. (2005). Para aumentar la competencia entre las AFP [To increase competition among the AFPs]. Estudios Públicos, 98(98), 87–142. https://doi.org/10.38178/cep.vi98.638
Valdés, S., & Marinovic, I. (2005a). Contabilidad regulatoria: Las AFP chilenas, 1993–2003 [Regulatory accounting: The Chilean AFPs, 1993–2003] (Documento de Trabajo 279). Instituto de Economía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Valdés, S., & Marinovic, I. (2005b). La demanda de las AFP chilenas: 1993–2002 [The demand for the Chilean AFPs: 1993–2002] (Documento de Trabajo 369). Instituto de Economía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Fernando Lopez

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Article usage
- ViewsTimes this article's page was opened since the journal started recording statistics. One person can visit more than once.
- 210
- DownloadsTimes the full text of this article (usually the PDF) was opened or downloaded.
- 311
All time, as recorded by the journal.
Among the top 23% by views · last 2 yearsCompared with all the journal's articles by views in the last 2 years, this one is among the top 23%.
Last 2 years: 90 views, 103 downloads.
CitationsTimes other scholarly works cited this article, according to OpenAlex and Crossref. The two indexes cover different sources, so their counts differ. : OpenAlex 5 · Crossref 5
1.48 downloads per view (journal average 1.66).Downloads of the full text for every abstract view of this article, compared with the whole journal.
Explore the journal's metrics
