Australian Superannuation: Operational Structure, Investment Performance and Trustee Governance

Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is on the Australian superannuation industry and superannuation funds – the investment vehicles for Australia’s compulsory private pension system. This dissertation is based upon three separate studies, which present original research of the operational structure, investment performance and trustee governance of Australian superannuation funds. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate these three key aspects of superannuation funds and their relationships to each other. Using a unique dataset provided by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), this dissertation makes a novel contribution to the understanding of the operation of Australian superannuation funds by examining the landscape of superannuation outsourcing and the impact of various types of outsourcing arrangements on fund costs; proposing a new risk-adjusted performance measure for comparing the performance of superannuation funds with different asset a llocations and profit orientations; investigating the performance of different types of superannuation funds and the underlying drivers of the performance differences; and examining the impact of trustee governance on superannuation fund performance.