PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - David Blanchett
AU  - Paul D. Kaplan
TI  - Beyond the Glide Path: <em>The Drivers of Target-Date Fund Returns</em>
AID  - 10.3905/jor.2018.1.038
DP  - 2018 Apr 30
TA  - The Journal of Retirement
PG  - 25--39
VI  - 5
IP  - 4
4099  - https://pm-research.com/content/5/4/25.short
4100  - https://pm-research.com/content/5/4/25.full
AB  - The authors explore the relative importance of the three primary drivers of target-date fund (TDF) performance: equity (or market) exposures (which, across a series’ vintages, combine to form a glide path), style exposures (intrastock and intrabond allocations), and other investment selection decisions (e.g., manager selection and the active/passive decision, as well as any other residual risk exposures). They find that overall equity exposure drives only about 25% of the variation in returns across TDFs versus approximately 30% for style and 45% for selection, on average. Consequently, the analysis of the riskiness of a given TDF must be based on more than the overall weight given to equites.TOPICS: Retirement, analysis of individual factors/risk premia, risk management