Does governance structure matter to the returns on investment of an SWF: a preliminary analysis
Date
2023-07
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Abstract
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have emerged as significant players in the global financial landscape managing vast amounts of capital, which are invested into different assets following different objectives. With this, the recent approval by Congress of the nation-based SWF in Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) has been met with numerous criticisms. Questions about its composition and integrity, particularly its independence to operate freely from partisan influences has been called to question and continues to be a hot debate for citizens and economic exports alike. This study's primary focus is to examine the returns on investment (ROI) of selected Sovereign
Wealth Funds (SWFs) from 2010 to 2021 and how it is affected by the governance structure of the fund. Our variable of interest is a modified operational independence index due to Fleiner (2022), and we control for important factors from the literature such as source of funding, alignment with strategic objectives, portfolio diversification, and governance practices, utilizing a random effects panel regression to estimate the effects of the said factors on the annual log ROI for a small sample of SWFs. We find that when SWFs are more dependent on the government in countries with effective governance, that is characterized by quality public service and high
degree of commitment to policies, this enhances the annual ROI of an SWF. While our sample is small owing to the lack of publicly disclosed ROI data, this analysis sheds some light on the role of governance in the performance of SWFs.
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Maharlika investment fund, sovereign wealth fund, operational independence