Erik Bogentoft, H. Edwin Romeijn, Stanislav Uryasev
Asset/Liability Management for pension funds using CVaR constraints

This paper studies formal optimal decision approaches for a multi-period Asset/Liability Management model for a pension fund. As a risk measure we use Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR), which is the weighted average of the Value-at-Risk (VaR) and the losses exceeding VaR. The model is based on sample-path simulation of the fund liabilities and returns of financial instruments included in the portfolio. The same optimal decisions are made for groups of sample-paths which exhibit similar performance characteristics. Since allocation proportions depend on time, these techniques are more flexible than more standard allocation procedures such as "constant proportions." Optimization is conducted using linear programming. However, compared to traditional stochastic programming algorithms for which the problem dimension increases exponentially in the number of time stages, our approach exhibits a linear growth of the dimension. Therefore, this approach allows for the solution of problems with very large numbers of instruments and scenarios.