Pension trustees make surrogate decisions on behalf of scheme members. However, prior research has not explored how this might affect pension adequacy. Our results show that when setting targets for pension replacement income, trustees project their own preferences instead of reflecting member preferences. Furthermore, projection was more pronounced for trustees with lower financial literacy. Trustees choose significantly higher pension replacement rates for members than members choose for themselves. Trustees also choose replacement rates higher than current benchmarks. The economic consequences are potentially considerable, due to high levels of pension contributions and incompatible risk-taking. A better understanding of the dynamics of decisions made by trustees is needed to ensure better member outcomes.

养老金受托人代表计划成员做出代理决定。然而，先前的研究并未探讨这可能如何影响养老金充足率。我们的结果表明，在设定养老金替代收入目标时，受托人会预测自己的偏好，而不是反映成员的偏好。此外，对于金融知识较低的受托人，预测更为明显。受托人为会员选择的养老金替代率明显高于会员为自己选择的比例。受托人还选择高于当前基准的替代率。由于高额的养老金缴款和不相容的冒险行为，经济后果可能相当可观。需要更好地了解受托人所做决策的动态，以确保更好的成员结果。