Will self-managed superannuation fund investors survive?

Abstract

The relative risk aversion coefficient that characterises the representative self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) investor reveals not only how much that investor dislikes risk but also other information about the investor’s economic characteristics, including how his or her allocations to risky assets change as his or her wealth changes. Determination of the relative risk aversion coefficient for the average SMSF investor reveals a value of 5.05. This value is too high to be consistent with logarithmic utility. This is significant because it implies that SMSF investors may be too risk averse to maximise the expected growth rate of wealth share accumulation. We are left to consider a very important question: Will SMSF investors survive?