National Pension System in India

This book focuses on asset allocation strategies under National Pension System (NPS) in India with the purpose to provide greater insights into the topic of portfolio choice in the accumulation phase of financial lifecycle of individuals. With this objective, the book analyses investment strategies as pension fund investment options used under NPS, in light of various alternative asset allocation strategies such as fixed weight asset allocation strategies, lifecycle asset allocation models and dynamic asset allocation strategies that have been suggested in academic and practitioner literature. Specifically, the book evaluates the effectiveness of various strategies employed under NPS, taking into account prevalent theories and approaches. It also provides insights on how employment loss and career breaks affect the pension accumulation outcomes of retirees belonging to different demographic groups with reference to India. Further, it presents a comprehensive review of the evidence on asset allocation based on the experiences of pension systems of several developed countries which have shifted to a defined contribution based pension system. Subsequently, it focuses on the comprehensive analysis of asset accumulation strategies under NPS and highlights lessons drawn from the experiences of other countries that provide several inputs to investors, pension funds managers and policy makers for making NPS an effective tool for retirement income. The book targets different kinds of readership such as corporate, fund managers in the pension market, risk management practitioner, researchers and policy makers alike, both in India and abroad, since the evidence on different approaches on asset allocation for retirees indicate a lot of variation in the effectiveness of the strategies in different pension systems across the world. It provides significant insights about the applicability of a pension system like NPS that will act as a lesson for other countries in future.