Influencing Retirement Saving: Smart Beta in Defined Contribution Default Options

Abstract

The shift to defined contribution (DC) plans as a primary retirement vehicle is increasingly a global phenomenon. A trend that originated in the corporate and tax-exempt marketplaces, it is now carrying over to the public sector across the globe. In this article, the authors look at one of the most profound innovations in index investing, smart beta, and analyze exactly what features of this new family of strategies could make them a viable improvement for default DC options. They then introduce examples of strategies that aim to achieve predefined investment outcomes and explore ways to implement them in traditional multi-asset portfolios. They test this by using existing smart beta indexes in the context of a traditional lifestyle fund, where market-capitalization indexes are replaced with smart beta indexes on predefined allocations.