10th International Pension Research Association (IPRA) Conference

13.00-13.15

Arrival Tea/Coffee

13.15-13.25

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Hazel Bateman, IPRA President
Astrid Ludin, IOPS President

13.25-15.25

Session 1: The Impact of Global Aging for Pension Funds

Chair: John Piggott (CEPAR, UNSW Sydney)

13.25-13.45

Population Aging and the Macroeconomy

Joseph Kopecky (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland)

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13.45-14.05

OECD Pension Reform: The Role of Demographic Trends and the Business Cycle

Ward Romp (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

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14.05-14.25

Cognitive Function in Later Life

Norma B. Coe (Penn Medical Ethics and Health Policy, USA)

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Discussant

Mike Orszag (WTW, IPRA)

15.25-15.55

Break

15.55-17.55

Session 2: Emerging Risks for Pension Funds

Chair: Olivia S. Mitchell (Pension Research Council, Wharton Business School, USA)

15.55-16.15

Pension Funds and Alternative Investments

Emil Siriwardane (Harvard Business School, USA)

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16.15-16.35

What do Pension Funds Need to Know About Climate Risk?

Mathijs van Dijk (Erasmus University, The Netherlands)

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16.35-16.55

Systemic Impacts of Big Pension Funds

David Bell (Conexus Institute, Australia)

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16.55-17.05

Discussant

Margaret Cole (Deputy Chair, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority)

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17.05-17.55

Panel Discussion and Q&A

17.55-18.00

Closing Remarks

18.00-19.00

Reception

3.15-13.25

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Hazel Bateman, IPRA President
Astrid Ludin, IOPS President

13.25-15.25

Session 1: The Impact of Global Aging for Pension Funds

Chair: John Piggott (CEPAR, UNSW Sydney)

Joseph Kopecky is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin. His research is in quantitative macroeconomics, bringing together data and models, with applications in: entrepreneurship, macroeconomic policy, life cycle risk taking, inequality, and asset prices. Much of my current work focuses on the role that population aging plays economies. To do so he identifies the various macroeconomic channels through which ageing populations can affect macroeconomic trends, quantifying the size of these impacts not only today, but for many years to come. Before moving to Dublin, he studied at the University of California, Davis. He is originally from the Chicago area where he did his undergraduate studies at DePaul University.

Ward Romp focuses on the interaction of pension policy, ageing, and the macroeconomy. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Groningen, he worked as postdoc at the University of Amsterdam and policy advisor at APG. Currently he is associate professor at the Amsterdam School of Economics. His work has been published in the Journal of Public Economics, European Economic Review, and Economic Policy”

Norma B. Coe is a Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an economist whose research focuses on identifying causal effects of policies that directly and indirectly impact health, human behavior, health care access, and health care utilization. Norma is the Director of the Policy and Economics of Disability, Aging, and Long Term Care (PEDAL) lab and Co-Director of the Population Aging Research Center (PARC). In her research, Dr. Coe merges the rigor of economic thinking and empirical analysis with the practical health services skills of measurement and knowledge of the health policy context to answer pressing questions for policymakers and other stakeholders on how we can improve aging in America.

Mike Orszag is head of global research services at Towers Watson, the global actuarial consulting firm. He joined Watson Wyatt in 2001 and was head of research prior to the merger with Towers Perrin in 2010.
 

Emil Siriwardane is an associate professor of business administration in the Finance Unit. Professor Siriwardane’s research studies the ways in which financial intermediaries influence capital markets, how perceptions of risk impact business cycles, and more recently, how public pensions make investment decisions. Professor Siriwardane earned his PhD in finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a BSE in operations research and financial engineering from Princeton University.

Mathijs A. van Dijk is professor of finance at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSMOpent extern) and scientific director at pension think tank NetsparOpent extern. His research focuses on sustainable investments and climate finance. He has published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, and the Review of Finance. Professor van Dijk has presented his work extensively at international conferences and seminars at academic institutions including, among others, Boston College, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, HEC Paris, INSEAD, and UCLA. He is also a frequent speaker at industry events and has written for practitioner-oriented journals such as the Financial Analysts Journal. His work has been covered by, e.g., The Economist, the New York Times, Volkskrant, NRC, VOXEU, the World Bank "All About Finance" blog, the Oxford Business Law Blog, and the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. Professor van Dijk has been a visiting graduate student at Warwick Business School and Princeton University and a visiting research scholar at the Ohio State University, Duke University, and UCLA. He obtained his MSc in Econometrics (cum laude) from Erasmus University and his PhD in Finance from Maastricht University. In 2008, he received a 600,000 euro Vidi-grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for a five-year research program on "Liquidity Black Holes". In 2014, he held his inaugural address as a finance professor (entitled “The Social Value of Finance”). 

David Bell is the executive director of The Conexus Institute and an active researcher (industry and academic) in the areas of retirement, superannuation, investment management and governance. David recently completed his PhD at UNSW, with a focus on asset allocation problems related to lifecycle modelling. David’s industry career experiences include the role of CIO at Mine Super, founder and director of his own consulting firm (St Davids Rd Advisory) and 12 years at CFS GAM (now First Sentier), mainly leading the fund-of-hedge funds investment team. David led the development of MDUF (the Member’s Default Utility Function), was a co-founder of financial newsletter Cuffelinks, and developed and taught the hedge funds elective at Macquarie University’s Applied Finance Centre.

Margaret Cole was appointed Deputy Chair of APRA on 31 October 2022, after joining APRA as Executive Board Member on 1 July 2021. She is responsible for the oversight of the superannuation sector, and represents APRA at the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors. Margaret graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in law and spent more than 20 years in private legal practice specialising in commercial litigation with an emphasis on financial services. Margaret was formerly a partner at Stephenson Harwood and White & Case. She joined the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) in 2005 and became Managing Director of Enforcement and Financial Crime and interim Managing Director of the Conduct Business Unit and a board member. Prior to joining APRA, she spent a year as PwC's Global Regulatory Leader based in Melbourne. Before that, she was PwC UK Chief Risk Officer and General Counsel from 2012 to 2020. Margaret has also been an independent non-executive director of Toronto Dominion Bank Europe Limited, Chair of Toronto Dominion Securities Limited and a trustee and executive committee member of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She is an Honorary Fellow of Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall), University of Cambridge. She has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Law, London.