Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how private pension supervisors in selected jurisdictions monitor and address lost pension accounts and unclaimed pension assets or benefits and draw supervisory implications. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on the survey on private pension schemes of selected International Organisation of Pension Supervisors member jurisdictions. Findings This paper finds that there are differences in severity of the issue of lost pension accounts and unclaimed pension benefits among jurisdictions, and that pension supervisors/regulators differ with regard to awareness of and approaches taken to handle this issue. Some jurisdictions show a well-established systematic approach to deal effectively with the problem of lost pension accounts or unclaimed benefits, while other jurisdictions are yet to recognise and tackle the issue. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first larger cross-country study on lost pension accounts and unclaimed benefits in private pension schemes. The paper presents international comparison of this issue in 32 different jurisdictions and provides examples of good supervisory or regulatory practices.

We analyse the investment behaviour of the defined contribution (DC) pension fund sector in equity markets during and after the 2008–2009 financial crisis until the years 2014–2016 and here for Chile, Mexico, Poland, and Italy. We employ quarterly data on equity purchases and sales and on cash flow at the level of the whole pension sector. Applied are the following methods: analysis of average quarterly transactions; scatter plot analysis of the relation between average quarterly net purchases and quarterly changes in asset value, a correlation analysis of average quarterly transactions in the equity market and its index values, regression analysis of average quarterly transactions in the equity market and its index values. The results indicate that in Poland and Italy, pension funds behaved counter-cyclically, whereas in Chile there are some signs, although less statistically significant, of pro-cyclical behaviour. In the case of Mexico no conclusions could be drawn. The investment behaviour of pension funds might be influenced not only by their strategic decisions but also by other factors that are related to the institutional framework they operate within (e.g. a strategic asset allocation benchmark may induce pro-cyclicality).