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This is an annotated bibliography on the socially responsible investment of pension funds, the most comprehensive of bibliographies in this field. We anticipate including a bibliography of French sources from international literature in the near future.

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Browse a project bibliography: 1: Shareholder and Corporate Engagement 2: Social Accounting for Pension Fund Investments 3: Assessing the Impact of Economically Targeted Investments by Pension Funds 4: Impact of Human Capital Based Investment Criteria on Total Shareholder Returns 4a: Global Standards and Pension Funds 5: Legal Barriers to Socially Responsible Investment 6: Role Conflict by Union Trustees of Pension Funds 7: Developing Education for Labour Trustees of Pension Funds 8: Evaluation of Trustee Education 9: Online Learning Community for Labour Trustees 10: A Gender Analysis of Pensions and Social Investment

This reference refers to the 1998 Annual Report for the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. The Caisse manages funds for both private and public pension funds and insurance plans. The assets of the Caisse as of December 31, 2004 totaled $102.4 billion making it one of the largest financial institutions in Quebec. Annual reports for 2002 and 2003 can be found on their website.

This book is concerned with the shrinking birth rate in Canada and the responsibilities of the young Canadian workforce to the large population of elderly. Problematic demographic trends are illustrated and possible strategies for redirecting these trends are granted to prevent the age gap crisis from escalating. The author challenges the “golden age” of retirement freedom as detrimental to both the pension eligible as well as the younger labour force. The author calls for a Canadian society that is more geared to savings with better funded pensions to increase productivity, create more employment, and alleviate the tax burden of the next generation. Keywords: Retirement, age gap,

This volume provides a scientific foundation for the advice offered by financial planners to long-term investors. Based upon statistics on asset return behavior and assumed investor objectives, the authors derive optimal portfolio rules that investors can compare with existing rules of thumb. Meanwhile, they suggest theoretical and empirical results for the choice of portfolio assets for retirement savings. It is clearly explained by mathematical and empirical methods. Readers can save time to read lots of papers related to this topic.

Section 65 of the CBCR, 2001 (annexed to the CBCA, 1985) is found in Part 7: Proxies and Proxy Solicitation, sub-heading Date of Proxy Circular and Information. It requires that a proxy circular be dated no later than 30 days before it is first sent to shareholders and that it contain all information required as of that date.

Parliamentary Task Force on Pension recognizes the extreme poverty of elderly women, labour joins churches and anti-poverty and women's groups in calling for expansion of public pension plans to 50% of earnings. The studies made several recommendations that helped to shape the present system of tax assistance for retirement savings. Interestingly, the Parliamentary Task Force on Pension Reform did devote a half page to disability benefits even though no disability organizations appeared as witnesses or made submissions. Furthermore, the CPP disability program was not an explicit part of the Task Force's mandate and order of reference from the House of Commons. Most political and policy attention was on tackling poverty among current seniors, especially single elderly women, and on the issue of a homemakers pension. On disability benefits, MPs on the Task Force felt strongly in stressing the importance of the CPP meeting the more generous standards in the QPP at the time.

In February 1996, the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce (the "Committee") held hearings on a number of broad policy issues related to modernizing the Canada Business Corporations Act particularly as regards the corporate governance of Canadian public companies. Many witnesses raised questions about the behavior of institutional investors, in Canada especially as regards their governance. The Committee heard about how institutional investors have the capacity to influence corporations in which they invest and were told of the numerous shortcomings as to how some institutional investors are operated and governed. As a result, the Committee decided to conduct a series of hearings on the role and governance practices of institutional investors beginning on November 16, 1997.

In this document Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities (CAPSA) provides a proposal for a model pension law that would replace the outdated inter-jurisdictional Memorandum of Reciprocal Agreement (or the “Reciprocal Agreement”) which was instituted in 1968. CAPSA is making the proposal with the recognition that inter-jurisdictional pensions are a big part of the Canadian pension industry and CAPSA members and the pension fund beneficiaries would welcome a more cost effective and efficient system. The proposal defines a set of principles that would guide a harmonized statute across jurisdictions. The elements for a model law that would aid the federal and provincial governments in drafting new pension laws are included in this document.

The Canadian Coalition for Good Governance’s mission statement proposes that the organization promotes “best corporate governance practices,” with an emphasis on protecting shareholder interests. As such, the CCGG’s 2004 Annual Report begins with a bar-graph entitled “100 Companies Must Improve Their Governance Practices In 2004". The graph rates all 212 companies in the S&P/TSX Composite Index on a scale of zero to one-hundred, with respect to good governance practices. CCGG Chairman Michael Wilson’s message follows. Described - in the following order - are the organization’s strategies, positive developments in the past year, a restating of the purpose of good governance and a concluding paragraph. The Managing Director’s Report delves into CCGG’s strategy in 2003 in a step-by-step manner, the most general outcome being that, according to CCGG itself, the organization managed to improve the corporate governance of 16 of the 33 companies it analysed. The final part of the Managing Director’s Report describes CCGG’s strategy for 2004. An unaudited Financial Statement, CCGG’s Mission Statement and Objectives and a list of their Board and Full Membership concludes this Annual Report.

This paper reports the research study investigating the role of pension funds in two key private capital markets - institutional venture capital and the middle market - as well as the low-capitalization end of public securities exchanges. It looks at pension participation in real estate and infrastructure investing. Statistical analyses indicate the increasing investment power of Canada’s public sector pension funds in these domains. In addition, based on research and interviews, the report offers a list of fourteen barriers that was submitted as a survey to the membership of Pension Investment Association of Canada (PIAC) in 1998. It also provides strategic ways for overcoming barriers in the United States where there is extensive pension participation in the middle and venture capital markets. It is concluded that development of marketplace infrastructure is vital to facilitating pension supply.

This report provides profiles of investment programs developed in Canada and the UnitedStates which have embarked on private investment activity, by directly addressing structural barriers – and with the additional caveat of targeting specific economic outcomes. Each case shows that the collateral benefit objectives of activity have been clearly expressed by key informants as ancillary to the pursuit of risk-adjusted returns, according to marketplace benchmarks established for distinct asset classes. Meanwhile, as illustrated by the examples profiled in this report, targeted investing may bring optimal returns to institutional investors. Such investments may contribute to bridging financing gaps that hinder the growth of small companies in technology sectors. This implicates that that the considerable assets of large institutional investors can be directed strategically so as to bring specific benefits to targeted communities, populations and economic sectors. The report suggests the idea that the successful targeted program can be seen as both a financial instrument that achieves market-grade returns and as a tool of social and economic development.

This is a research report examining issues pertaining to the financing of Canadian high value-added investment. It traces the evolution of international models of investment and financing that involve unions and workers. Meanwhile, this research concentrates on the identification of the common institutional features shared by labour-sponsored investment funds - providing data about mandates and investment standards, illustrations of related programs and activity, and documented evidence of performance - the research also suggests specific matters that merit further research. The report concludes with the suggestion that as the targets of significant public treasury dollars, labour-sponsored funds should be subject to close observation and assessment based on the ten salient qualities outlined in the preceding.

CANSIM is Statistics Canada’s socioeconomic database. Table 280-0003's sub-title is “Trusteed pension funds, market and book value of assets, by foreign and domestic holdings, quarterly (Dollars)”. The options for table-generation are as follows: In terms of Asset Value, one can select either Market value of assets or Book value of assets. In the Asset category, foreign and domestic, the options are Total assets, or Bonds, Stocks, Short-term or Other assets. In Nationality holdings, one can select either Canadian assets, Foreign investments or both. Finally, one must specify the Reference period, defaulted as Quarterly data. The data can be presented as a Table or as individual Tim series. To display any type of requested data, one is charged three dollars Canadian as of 24 May, 2006.

This paper investigates the influence of Swiss firms’ disclosure policy and of their financial analysts’ coverage on stock price abnormal reactions to the publication of the annual reports. It gives the emphasis on asymmetry in the relationship between stock price abnormal reactions and two informational variables, namely the quality of the firm’s disclosure policy and its financial analysts’ coverage. The summary statistics on the abnormal returns and the informational variables demonstrate that the inverse relationship between abnormal negative returns and the financial analysts’ coverage supports the fact that competition among analysts reduces investors’ adverse selection problem. Finally, the study evidences a non-linear relationship between rating and positive abnormal returns which is meaningful for the “good” and “very good type” firms and thus emphasizes the signaling role played by a firm’s financial disclosure policy.

This paper is an introduction to "Money on the Line", which is a collection of papers focusing on union-based pension funds and labour-sponsored investment funds. In this introduction, the authors describe the context for the increasing interest of union-based pension funds in the late 1970s, which was mainly rising unemployment, stagnant wages, restrictions of the rights of public sector workers to strike, and the internationalization of finance. The authors provide the background of these collected papers, which includes "the social investment movement", "rate of return", "managerial control", and "union pension trustee education as contested terrain." In the end, the authors give an overview of the whole book.

This book presents the papers that focus on union-based pension funds and labour-sponsored investment funds in Canadian contexts. These studies, which have common feature of labour involvement, reflect the growth of union interest in the investment of pension funds and their participation in labour-sponsored investment funds. The book contains eight chapters. Chapter one provides a political analysis of the damaging consequences for workers and communities of the prevailing international investment practices of pension funds. Chapter two challenges conventional interpretations of fiduciary responsibility. Chapter three provides practical, legal guidance to trustees on the development of statements of investment policy. Chapter four provides the results of a study to understand the dynamics that lead pension funds in the direction of social investment. Chapter five points the way for trustees and trade unions in assessing the collateral value of investment vehicles to community members. Chapter six presents the idea that a collaboration of labour and community leaders and academics can create opportunities for public and labour education, mobilize leadership, rally expertise, and create the momentum for major social change. Chapter seven shows the Canadian experience growing out of labour sponsored investment funds. Chapter eight provides the description of the well-established experience of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System in economically targeted investment. This book provides a valuable educational tool for union activists, trustees, and other groups interested in progressive approaches to the social investment of pension funds and labour-sponsored investment funds.

Unions have been among the most salient symbols of pluralism in modern democratic nations. Yet now their influence is waning. What are the reasons for this decline? What, if anything, can unions do to stop the downward trend? And should we care if unions decline? This book contains papers drawn from a variety of countries, which consider the future of unions as a labor and social movement. The focus is truly international and the contributors are all distinguished scholars.

In this chapter, the author challenges conventional interpretations of fiduciary responsibility, and argues that the “prudent man” rule has been used by the financial industry to bolster its control of workers’ pension funds and to prevent any union involvement. Through an examination of the leading cases in North America and Britain, it assesses the legal opportunities for union trustees to develop social investment strategies. It highlights recent Canada legal opinion, encourages trustees to work with their unions on economic development policy, and calls for a much stronger role for unions on pension investment education, investment policy, and economic development projects.

This is a book chapter that provides a case study of Concert, a real estate development company in British Columbia. The case study of Concert provides a model of a Canadian ETI for trustees. It tells a story of trade unionists and their friends who, in spite of numerous legal and practical obstacles, built a real estate development company that is a leader in affordable housing in Canada. It shows the structure of VLC, the two Concert companies as well as its sister investment vehicle, Mortgage Fund One. This chapter points the way for trustees and trade unions in assessing the collateral value of investment vehicles to their members and the general community. In the end, the author suggests that research in the area of social accounting needs to continue to support the social investment initiatives of trade unions and their trustees.

This is a doctoral thesis that focuses on investments targeted to a working class community in Vancouver, Canada. Given the fact that pension funds have become a critical source of capital for national and international markets, and yet are largely beyond the control of workers or their unions, the author argues that these pension funds can provide the long-term capital needed to build a new economy based on real productivity. To test this assumption, a participatory research methodology is applied to a real estate development company in British Columbia funded through the pooling of capital from 26 pension funds with union trustees. The findings show that the company doubled its direct, attributable hours of employment in indirect and induced hours of work in the community. Further, its contribution to community productivity was more than double its total cost over a ten-year period. For all levels of government, tax revenues from Concert and Mortgage fund One far outweigh foregone taxes through pension fund contributions and investment returns. A social action model for union control of pension fund investment illustrates the major components that enable union trustees to invest pension funds for social, or collateral benefit. These components are leadership, social support and expertise, and education. The study recommends strong educational programs for pension trustees in social investment strategies.

In this chapter, the author challenges conventional interpretations of fiduciary responsibility, and argues that the “prudent man” rule has been used by the financial industry to bolster its control of workers’ pension funds and to prevent any union involvement. Through an examination of the leading cases in North America and Britain, it assesses the legal opportunities for union trustees to develop social investment strategies. It highlights recent Canada legal opinion, encourages trustees to work with their unions on economic development policy, and calls for a much stronger role for unions on pension investment education, investment policy, and economic development projects.

Offered here is a conceptual model that comprehensively describes essential aspects of corporate social performance. The three aspects of the model address major questions of concern to academics and managers alike: (1) What is included in corporate social responsibility? (2) What are the social issues the organization must address? and (3) What is the organization's philosophy or mode of social responsiveness?

In this book, Manuel Castells concludes the Information Age trilogy by considering the intersection of the global network society and factional project identities, laying in the wide scope of argument. Among the subjects addressed are the collapse of the Soviet Union; the potential emergence of the Asian Pacific as the next region of major world power; and the rapidly increasing growth of a "Fourth World"-- a series of "black holes of informational capitalism" (areas that have been cut off from the flow of wealth and information in the global economy) that refuses to confine itself to national borders--as likely to appear in the American inner city as it is in sub-Saharan Africa. Castell also raises the specter of a "global criminal economy," a dark counterpart to transnational corporations, and suggests that trends such as fascination with gangster movies "may well indicate the cultural breakdown of traditional moral order, and the implicit recognition of a new society, made up of communal identity and unruly competition." End of Millennium is bound to provoke debate about any efforts to shape the trends of the 21st century.

This book is an indispensable tool for understanding pension and benefit plans in Canada. It is divided into three parts. In Part One, the author provides detailed accounts of retirement income arrangements. Chapters in this part describe the pension programs sponsored by government and the variety of plans sponsored by employers in more detail. The typical terms and conditions found in employer plans are described, as are the considerations, including legislation, that an employer will take into account when deciding on these terms and conditions. While the focus is on registered pension plans, Part I also review other supplementary plans for executives and other retirement income and savings arrangements. Part Two provides an overview of employee benefits. The chapters describe major benefit category and address the variations and trends within each benefit. From a strategic perspective, it summarizes the administrative and financial considerations necessary for human resources professionals and financial officers. Part three is a brief outline of some the recent issues and trends that have occurred and are occurring in the pension and employment benefits sector. It provides some context and direction for managers thinking about the role of pensions and benefits with their particular organizations. In sum, the book, in easy-to-understand language, takes readers through comprehensive coverage on retirement savings arrangements, employee pensions and benefit and emerging issues.

In this book, the Pulitzer prize winner, Alfred Chandler traces the evolution of large firms into multinational giants and orienting the late twentieth century's most important developments through examining the beginnings and growth of managerial capitalism globally, focusing on the history of the modern industrial enterprise in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Drawing on his ten years of research into the history of the managerial business system, Chandler provides information relating to the two hundred largest manufacturing firms in each of the three countries at three points in time--during World War I, at the end of the 1920s, and at the start of the post-World War II era. In particular, the author contributes his attention to the discussion of the foundations of managerial capitalism in American industry; vertical integration and oligopolistic competition in the United States; U.S. investment abroad and product diversification in food, chemicals, and machinery; the continuing commitment to personal capitalism in Great Britain; industrial success and failure in Great Britain; the foundations of managerial capitalism in German industry; the creation of organizational capabilities in Germany; and industrial recovery in Germany. Patterns of growth and competitiveness in the U.S., Germany, and Great Britain are also identified.

The authors of this letter represent a pan-European organization with a mandate to promote good corporate governance and fair treatment of shareholders, by the name of the International Corporate Governance Network. The letter is addressed to the European Union’s Minister of Justice, in response to the Consultative Document of the Expert Group on Cross-Border Voting. The letter praises the findings of the Document, created by what the authors refer to as “the Winter Committee,” and offer additional comments. Their first is to legalize proxy-voting rights, as well as disclosure rights. In terms of what constitutes a beneficial voter, the authors address the difficulties in creating legal or official definitions of such, due to the complicated nature of shareholding within the European context, recommending that the last members of the chain of ownership be considered as beneficial voters. To improve temporal, cost and communication problems related to voting communication, the authors suggest a direct communication between issuers and shareholders. In terms of voter privacy, the authors prefer a voting opt-out system, as opposed to an opt-in system. In terms of the voting requirements, the authors weigh the pros and cons of either blocking share-trading (as per the European system) or declaring a recorded date (as per American and Japanese systems). They conclude that the “British compromise,” which declares a recorded date as close to the Shareholder’s Meeting as possible is viable as communication technology improves. The letter also addresses the problems of different settlement periods in different countries, the difference between bearer and registered shares and share-lending. The letter concludes with a call for changes in terms of cross-border shareholder voting with respect to national laws.

Clark and Tracey, in the book Global Competitiveness and Innovation, present arguments and debates about globalization, searching questions about the significance of national and regional borders for the competitive strategies of individuals, firms and industries. To address and explore these issues, the book contains four key topics: the status of economic agents in the emerging global economy; the limits of path dependence and the scope of agent action; the relationship between agents' decision-making and their environments; and agents' learning capacities in a world of information and knowledge creation.

With the consideration of the role of pension funds in urban economic development, the researcher reports multinational research of pension funds, done in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada with a focus on the causes of the rise and significance of pension funds in these countries. In particular, the research examines the functional and spatial structure of the Anglo-American investment management industry, in an attempt to addresses issues of competition and innovation in investment management. The researcher describes and explains the dominance of convention in trustee decision making based on detailed interviews with pension trustees, investment consultants, and managers. The data also indicate the role that private financial institutions may play in mobilizing pension fund investment in urban infrastructure. In the end, the researcher suggests the mutual-benefits view of the links between plan beneficiaries and their communities.

The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography is novel and exciting, involving side-by-side contributions by economic geographers and economists on economic geography of performance. They present the multifarious field of economic geography, which is a key interdiciplinary reference resource, and intend to bridge some of gaps in the performance of economic geography by tying some of the loose strand together. In brief, the Handbook rests on three pillars, such as differences, which refers to immediate and distinctive variations in economic performances across space and among places; differentiation, which denotes short-term differences that derive from long-term, on-going economic processes that sustain spatial variation; and heterogeneity, which signifies an acceptance of multiple and conflicting theoretical approaches to the economy. The Handbook is aimed at upper-level undergraduates, graduates, and newcomers to the field of economic geography.

Drawing on research from diverse fields ranging from sociology to geography to financial economics, Clark’s book, "European Pensions and Global Finance,” provides the overall exposition of the key issues of governance and globalization and their role in the evolution of pensions in Europe. In particular, he introduces the demographic and funding crises that threaten continental European systems of pension and retirement income. Clark indicates that state-sponsored social security will not deliver poised retirement incomes for the baby-boom generation; European monetary union and the imperatives of global finance has made such promises untenable thereby undercutting nation-state social solidarity. To this end, the author argues that globalization has set many challenges for European countries not least of which is providing pension security for their citizens. At the same time, global finance has opened-up options for corporations and individuals seeking alternatives to the past; but exercising those opportunities will come at a high cost for European notions of social justice. This is a book which can and should be read by anyone who wishes to further their understanding of European pensions.

In this article, Clark comments on Ewarld Engelen’s article, “The Logic of Funding European Pension Restucturing and the Dangers of Financialization." The author contends that Engelen's argument that the European model of unfunded social security is a viable model for the future is full of wishful thinking which is hardly an appropriate guide for public policy or for that matter a vision of the future that European citizens might be justifiably confident in seeing come to fruition in that the author suggests relevant public policy in general and funded pension systems in particular should take seriously into account profound demographic, fiscal, and global financial pressures by re-thinking the implications of current patterns of fertility, longevity, and migration for inherited systems of capital markets, labour markets, and social structures.

In arguing that Golden-rules such as the exclusive benefit rule do not always resolve the dilemmas, conflicts of interest, and reasonable doubts over the proper course of action, Clark in this paper explains why this is the case those knowledgeable of pension funds and related institutions will readily acknowledge this fact of life. The author explores pension fund governance, pension fund governance by focusing upon internal governance given the scope of trustee discretion and responsibility. He also looks at the internal governance of pension funds emphasizing codes of practice, the rules and procedures for decision-making, and trustee competence and expertise. In doing so, the author intends to argue that better governance demands a different organizational form than that inherited from the nineteenth century. The arguments contribute a deeper understanding of what is implied by codes of conduct and the search for trustee competence.

The book, The Sociology of Finance, is about the social and cultural study of finance, of the markets and institutions used for financial transactions, and the trading of assets and risks. Incorporating the goal of the book, Gordon Clark and Nigel Thrift address the question of how banks exercise control over trading rooms and financial market transactions. They describe a bureaucratic process of control through risk management that is dependent upon assessing dispersed knowledge about market conditions and response within the firm and across the globe. In presenting myths that continue to beset social commentaries on international financial markets in 1980s, the authors introduce the FX (foreign exchange) market and consider its contemporary mechanics. On the basis of this, they document and explain how private financial institutions manage the trading process on a 24-h basis around the globe. By providing the evidence, Clark and Thrift show that a market which is increasingly coordinated by large bureaucracies that attempt to make money by threading a large number of administrative procedures through multi-dimensioned entrepreneurial behavior. This implicates that in financial markets, this kind of bureaucratic control is seen to be essential to corporate financial integrity and performance. Thus, it may also be essential to global financial stability.

In this paper, the authors seek to understand the Asian crisis through the eyes of city of London. Drawing on the material provided by The Financial Time, they construct an index of pessimism to chart the dominant city of London interpretation of the path of the crisis, in an attempt to analyze the actual performance of stock markets in cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and New York over the same period. Their analysis is built around three suppositions: (1) market agents’ assessment of the expected path of the crisis distrusted available information, (2) market agents sought independent of the assessment of the likely path of the crisis given the lack of experience of large and small financial institutions in such circumstance, and (3) the related the expectations were not homogeneous between financial centres. The analyses help explain the construction of the dominant pessimistic interpretation of the path of the crisis, thereby placing the city of London in the context of global markets. The study contributes to economic geography of financial markets, emphasizing discontinuities between global markets and the future of financial centres.