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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Reasons for selecting the topic
For a long time, the development of financial intermediaries in the stock
market has been the subject of much research interest from theory to practice. One
of the financial intermediaries is the voluntary funded pension funds, formed from
the process of reforming the national public pension system in the context of an
aging population and gradually becoming an important large institutional investor in
the stock market. Meanwhile, in the world, the traditional PAYG pension system is
gradually being replaced by a (fully/partially) funded pension system. The
introduction of a funded pension system allows pension funds to voluntarily
accumulate funds for investment in financial markets. This accumulation is
expected to increase the depth and liquidity of the capital market. At the same time,
with their accumulated assets and long-term capital, private voluntary funded
pension funds have the incentive to invest more in long-term and illiquid assets to
generate higher returns, then they also contribute to long-term funding for the
capital market in general, the stock market in particular (Davis, 1998, Davis, 2000).
In the world, there are many empirical studies on the development of private
voluntary funded pension funds for the growth of the stock market (Catalan,
Impavido & Musalem, 2000, Walker & Lefort, 2002, Impavido, Musalem &
Tresselt, 2003; Meng & Pfau, 2010; Liang & Bing, 2010; Rocholl & Niggemann,
2010; Raisa, 2012; Hu, 2012; Zandberg & Spierdijk, 2013; Sun & Hu, 2014).
Although these empirical studies use different quantitative models in order to find
reliable estimation methods and time periods for different data sets, most
conclusions show a consistence about the meaningful positive role of private
voluntary funded pension funds in the development of the capital market.
Accordingly, these empirical studies confirm the role of institutional investors of
the private voluntary funded pension funds and the need to develop these funds in
the stock market. However, most of these empirical studies have encountered