Contributory Pension Fund Administrations in Nigeria: Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Its Efficiency and Implications for Policy Designs

Abstract

The study assessed the technical efficiency of pension fund administrators in Nigeria using Stochastic Cost Frontier Model to generate efficiency scores for each of the eleven (11) selected pension fund administrators from a population of twenty-one (21). Panel data gathered from the annual reports of the selected pension fund administrators and the National Pension Commission were analysed using the maximum likelihood technique. The result showed that inefficiency, in varying degrees, existed in the selected fund administrators due to input costs on labour, equipment and premises and the mean and median efficiency scores were about 75% and 72% respectively. While the most efficient pension fund administrator recorded inefficiency score of 0.077, the least efficient pension fund administrator had inefficiency score of 0.388. The study concluded that increase in profitability, number of contributors, engaging in open fund investment activities and merger and acquisition reduce operating cost. It was therefore recommended that there should be a regulator-initiated merger and acquisition in the industry to eliminate waste, with positive impact on investment income. Besides, the regulatory agency should ease and expand transfer windows for existing contributors to transfer their pension contributions from an inefficient pension manager to efficient one to engender competition in the pension industry.