SWEDEN - The Swedish Premium Pension Authority, PPM, has created a four-strong scientific advisory board.

The board is to function as a reference point for PPM’s work and give the authority advice in areas of academic research, financial economics as well as communication.

It comprises:

- Magnus Dahlqvist, Professor in financial economics and head of the Stockholm Institute for Financial Research
- Kent Eriksson, professor of business economics and head of research at the Royal Institute of Technology
- Michael Orzag, head of research at Watson Wyatt
- Annika Sundén, pension scholar at the Swedish Social Insurance Administration and chief secretary of the Governmental study on Social Security.

“ We are very pleased that we have been able to gather such a distinguished group of scholars to us,” said chief economist says Daniel Barr. “It is an enhancement of PPM’s capabilities.

“The advisory board can hopefully give the pension premium savers a better guidance and evaluation of the system.”

The move comes as PPM and the AP buffer funds have been under severe scrutiny as regards to cost and the poor performance of the selection in the PPM system.

On June 15 deputy finance minister Sven-Erik Österberg had a meeting with the chairmen of the AP funds over costs following a report compiled by consulting firm KPMG.

“I wish to have an open dialogue so that we can together find solutions to achieve a higher degree of efficiency and lower cost,” the minister said. “We need to look into the possible cost savings measure suggested.”