Individual Pension Funds and Capital Market Development in Turkey

Abstract

Abstract Beginning with the 1980s, when the sustainability of the public pension systems became endangedered, many countries have developed their individual pension plans and/or occupational pension plans in order to supersede or support their public pension systems,. This study examines the impact of individual pension funds on the development of both debt securities market and stock market in Turkey during the period October 2006-May 2015, using Hatemi (2008) cointegration test and Toda and Yamamoto (1995) causality test with monthly data. We found that, in the long run, the private pension funds had positive impact on both development of debt securities market and stock market. Furthermore, causality appears to exist between the market for private pension funds, the debt securities market and the stock market.