Familiarity Breeds Alternative Investment: Evidence from Corporate Defined-Benefit Pension Plans

We show that corporate R&D intensity and Land and Buildings intensity increase sponsored defined-benefit pension plan investment in private equity and real estate, respectively. Pension funds with such alternative investment tilts underperform significantly, which is inconsistent with plans benefiting from an informational advantage or asset-specific expertise. We find some evidence consistent with the existence of spillovers between pension funds with portfolio tilts and their corporate sponsors. Our results are consistent with theories of familiarity based on ambiguity aversion and on fear of the unknown. This familiarity bias in asset allocation is both robust and economically significant