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Purpose The objective of this paper is to examine whether the financial satisfaction (FS) of a state’s residents is affected by the funding ratio of the state’s public pension. Design/methodology/approach A multilevel hierarchal probit model that control for the funding ratio at the state level and its resident’s FS at the individual level was used to determine how a one-unit increase in funding ratio of a state’s pension plan affected the degree of FS experienced by the individual residing within that state. Findings The marginal effect from the probit model estimated suggest that a state’s pension plan funding ratio does affect the degree of FS experienced by its residents. Research limitations/implications This study only examined data from 2015, thus, future research should consider examining this question via longitude studies, perhaps a survivor model. Practical implications States that fail to address their pension plan’s funding ratio may be exposing their residents to negative externality that could potentially influence an individual’s choice to relocate to another state that is not facing similar issues. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, the current body of research has yet to address and/or research the externalities associated with the underfunding of public pension plans throughout the USA. This paper combined two unique sets of publicly available data from all 50 states along with a sample of its residents to examine how public policy associated with state and/or local government pension affect its residents.

In this paper, we investigate a robust optimal investment problem for a defined contribution (DC) pension plan with a return of premiums clause, taking account of the inflation risk and the salary ...

Public pension funding problems may contribute to a state's poor economic performance. This paper examines that proposition, using state-level data on public pensions developed by the Pew Trust, and jointly by the Federal Reserve Board and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. There is little evidence that measures of the level of unfunded pension plan liabilities lead directly to a state's soft economic performance, though growth in unfunded liabilities appear to be associated with lower growth. While these results suggest that reductions in the growth of a state's pension debt may be beneficial, they arguably do not imply that dramatic action to reduce liabilities is necessarily called for. In that regard, the implications are comparable to those of Lenney et al. (2019), that suggest that reasonable goals for some presumed highly troubled systems are stabilization of the ratio of their unfunded liabilities to their state's nominal GDP, rather than outright elimination of the debt.

This paper studies an optimal deterministic investment problem for a DC pension plan member with inflation risk. We describe the price processes of the inflation-indexed bond and the stock by a continuous diffusion process and a jump diffusion process with random parameters, respectively. The contribution rate linked to the income of the DC plan member is assumed to be a non-Markovian adapted process. Under the mean-variance criterion, we use Malliavin calculus to derive a characterization for the optimal deterministic investment strategy. In some special cases, we obtain the explicit expressions for the optimal deterministic strategies.

This research aims to analyze the relationship between the interest rate relationship is inversely proportional to the amount of the premium on the pension plan. The method used is to measure several variables, among others FSL (Future Service Liability), PVFSAL (Present Value Future Salary), PR (Pension Rate) and Premiums. Calculation, life annuity uses actuarial assumptions, one of which is the interest rate assumption, if the assumptions used are not in accordance with the actual conditions, then what happens is excessive payments or deficient payments. The interest rate has an influence in the process of calculating the defined benefit pension plan premium. Using the assumption of different interest rates (11%, 12 % and 13%), it is found that the interest rate relationship is inversely proportional to the amount of the premium. The results of this study are FSL, PVFSAL, PR and Premiums for the interest of 11%, 12% and 13% (participants aged 25 years) as follows 720,187.97; 554,000,24; 430,570.07 (FSL in Rupiah); 27,155,187.70; 24,922,770,59; 23,002,699.40 (PVFSAL in Rupiah); 2.6521; 2.2229; 1.8718 (PR in%) and 55,535.38; 46,546.85; 39,196.00 (Premiums in Rupiah)The higher the interest rate, the smaller the pension premium and vice versa.

We analyze late-career teacher turnover induced by pension incentives. Using longitudinal data with performance measures for Tennessee public school teachers, we find higher quality teachers are less likely to retire conditional on age and experience. To quantify the effects of pension incentives, we estimate a structural model for retirement and find that high quality teachers have a lower disutility for teaching relative to retirement. We use the structural estimates to simulate the effect of changes in retirement incentives. Enhancements to traditional plans accelerate teacher retirement, whereas targeted retention bonuses delay retirement and retain high quality teachers at relatively modest cost.

This paper investigates a robust optimal portfolio choice problem for a defined contribution (DC) pension plan member. The member worries about model ambiguity and aims to seek robust optimal inves...

This paper concentrates on the premium valuation of pension insurance provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The PBGC provides a defined benefit pension sponsor with coverage in case that the pension fund fails to make pension payments as promised or that the plan sponsor does not stay in business any more. In practice, both the pension fund and the sponsor assets play a critical role in fulfilling the commitment of pension payments, and thereby it is not reasonable to isolate the risk of distress termination of the sponsor assets from that of the premature termination of the pension fund. Different from previous works in which the premature termination of the pension fund and the distress termination of the sponsor assets are analyzed separately, our model examines the situation in which retirees suffer the risk of two types of terminations at the same time. We evaluate the risk-based fair premium under the framework that the pension fund and the sponsor assets are correlated and subject to the risk of the involuntary termination (i.e., premature termination) and the distress termination, respectively. In this framework, we manage to obtain closed-form pricing formulas. Our model is more practical because of the realistic design of termination schemes. Numerical simulations are also carried out to demonstrate our findings. Our numerical experiments validate that a variable rate premium is more appropriate for the PBGC to implement.

Why do we observe higher and higher retirement insecurity over the years? This paper argues that an individual’s retirement insecurity hinges on the interplay between her registered pension scheme and the level of market volatility. A pension scheme reflects the extent to which pension investment risk is individualized, providing the seed for retirement insecurity. The fear for retirement was triggered as capital markets became more volatile over the past decade. Market volatility creates an immediate information shortcut for individuals when forming expectations about post-retirement income that will only be realized in the long run. Due to the “available information bias,” citizens have developed overall downward expectations of retirement income under growing market volatility, forming pessimistic perceptions about retirement. This pessimism is more striking among those with a Defined Contribution pension scheme than those with a Defined Benefit plan because of the risk individualization feature. The argument is tested with data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The findings suggest that individuals’ perceptions of insecurity in post-working life are driven by the type of pension plan in which they are enrolled and the degree of market fluctuation facing them.

We use simulation methods and a detailed tax calculator to analyze the likely effects of two recent proposals aimed at reforming the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP): the federal proposal, eventually implemented throughout Canada, and the Quebec government's December 2016 proposal. Accounting for education-adjusted life expectancy, earnings variability over the course of a career, and their interactions with the tax code and retirement income system, we find that internal rates of return (IRRs) for new QPP contributions are similar under both reforms for individuals with lifetime average annual earnings of more than $40,000. Both reforms yield substantial IRRs for low-income individuals. Although the Quebec proposal offers higher IRRs for individuals earning less than $40,000, the federal proposal yields greater present value benefits for these same individuals. We show that if new QPP benefits were exempted from the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) clawback, and provided that the working income tax benefit and GIS were not enhanced, the two reforms would yield similar IRRs for individuals with average earnings of more than $15,000. The QPP reform would thus better focus on the middle-income earners originally targeted by reform advocates.

SYNOPSIS We contribute to the literature examining defined benefit pension plan asset allocation in the post-SFAS 132(R) reporting environment. SFAS 132(R) requires firms to disclose the expected annual pension benefit payments, thus providing a direct way to measure pension plan payout horizon. Controlling for previously documented determinants of pension asset allocation, we find evidence that a payout horizon measure constructed from SFAS 132(R) disclosures is associated with the firm's pension investment decisions. Specifically, we document that firms with a greater proportion of pension obligations due in the short horizon allocate a smaller portion of their plan assets to equity investments. Additionally, we provide evidence that our proposed measure explains asset allocation over and above previously used proxies representing plan horizon, confirming the usefulness of the 132(R) mandated disclosures.

The individual account pension plan will soon recognize those beneficiaries about to receive their pension under this scheme. The 1997 Social Security Law has incorporated strict requirements to the pension plan; therefore, the possibility to obtain a retirement through an individual account is complicated for the employee. The pension will not necessarily guarantee the quality of life given that the retirement funds have been accumulated based on contribution rates and voluntary savings but not on the monthly average of the contribution base wage, which are funds affected by negative yields. The objective of this study is to analyze the AFORES classification SB2 and the performance invested in the SIEFORES to quantify the value of the pension. It applies the hemerographic-legislative technique in the model of the guaranteeism and the principle of the minimum vital in the framework of the human rights, and a quantitative study of time series. It is concluded that individual account system pensions will not guarantee the quality of life of individual account holders.

Using data from a large-scale Annual Social Survey of Israel's CBS, the current study investigates the correlation between digital skills and extrinsic rewards among late career employees (ages 45 and older) in the Israeli context. Applying signaling theory, we conceptualize digital skills as signals of competence and suitability to the firm among older workers who have been employed a relatively short period of time in their current workplace. Using warranting theory we conceptualize digital skills as warrants among older workers who have been employed in their position for a longer period but nevertheless wish to demonstrate ongoing productivity. Digital skills were positively correlated with income among both groups of late career employees. These skills were also positively associated with exclusive fringe benefits from the workplace (i.e., company car, cellphone from work, and stocks or shares in the workplace) only among those who worked 5 years and more in the current workplace. The correlation between digital skills and standard benefits from the workplace (employer's payments to pension plan, study fund etc.) was insignificant among both groups of late employees.

Trust is an essential component of the financial system, and distrust can undermine saving and economic growth. Accordingly, prior research has shown that survey responses to a question about ‘trust in people’ are associated with household willingness to invest in the stock market. Nevertheless, little is known about how trust shapes economic behaviors predictive of retirement preparedness. Our study draws on the Singapore Life Panel (SLP®), a high-frequency internet survey of people age 50-70, to assess how trust ties to older respondents’ (1) pension plan participation and withdrawals; (2) life, health and long-term care insurance purchases; and (3) stock market engagement. We show that the ‘trust in people’ question often used in prior studies is uncorrelated with household behaviors related to retirement preparedness. Nevertheless, trust in financial and public-sector representatives is positively associated with pension savings, investments, and insurance purchases. Financial literacy also has a consistent and important role in explaining who saves for retirement and other economic behaviors driving retirement readiness.

We analyze the investment menus offered within 401(k) pension plans to the employees of the largest finance and non-finance firms. Within the sample of finance firms, we distinguish between finance firms that hire an external independent trustee and finance firms that serve also as a trustee of their own pension plan. We find that employees of finance firms with an external trustee invest less in sponsor equity and options affiliated with the trustee as compared to those of non-finance firms and of finance firms with an internal trustee. The changes of mutual funds on the investment menu offered by finance firms with an independent trustee are also more sensitive to past performance and their plan participants benefit from the removal of underperforming mutual funds. These findings suggest that greater financial sophistication among plan participants and the sponsoring company can improve the quality 401(k) menus, but only when it is accompanied with an independent governance structure.

In the never-ending debate about finding an optimal pension model, many proponents start the discussion at extreme ends of the pension model paradigm. At one extreme is a traditional, fully guaranteed defined-benefit (DB) pension plan. In this plan, all of the risks are born by the plan sponsor given that plans are fully funded. While such plans are growing rare today that is the starting point for many in this debate. At the other extreme is a traditional defined-contribution (DC) plan. In this plan, all of the risks are borne by the worker participant. This, again, is a starting point for many in the pension model debate. Many classic DB and classic DC pension plans have not achieved their goals. This paper argues they should be replaced by pension plans that facilitate sharing of risks among all willing stakeholders, whether the plan is characterized as DB or DC. This paper proposes, as a starting point for all pension-plan model discussions, a “Common Ground.” If one is of a pro-DB persuasion, then the Common Ground model would be a Pooled Target Benefit DB pension plan. If one is of the pro-DC persuasion, then the starting point will be a large Collective DC plan. These plans have a lot in common and, since they can provide equivalent benefits for the same contributions, they should be viewed as being actuarially equivalent. Thus, by finding the common ground in the Great Pension Debate, we have also identified models for pensions that can provide all Canadian workers with significant retirement income security. With that accomplished, the question becomes whether one wants a bit more of a DB flavour and why or whether one wants a bit more of a DC flavour and why. This should make arriving at a consensus plan model much easier for all. We conclude that policies encouraging larger collective, pooled pension plans governed by independent management boards are very much needed to better serve Canadians. Such solutions are common in the public sector but need to be encouraged in the private sector.

Trust is an essential component of any financial system, and distrust can undermine savings and economic growth. Our study draws on the Singapore Life Panel to assess how trust ties to older respondents’ (1) pension plan participation and withdrawals; (2) life, health, and long-term care insurance holdings; and (3) stock market engagement. We show that the widely-used ‘trust in people’ question is uncorrelated with household behaviours related to retirement preparedness. Instead, trust in private and public financial representatives is positively associated with pension savings, investments, and insurance holdings. Financial literacy also plays an important and consistent role in retirement decision-making.

A termination rule based on a critical funding ratio is proposed for a pension guarantee fund (PGF) that considers closing an underfunded pension plan. This ratio is determined by solving an expected utility maximization problem on behalf of plan beneficiaries subject to two constraints designed to preserve the PGF's viability. The first is an upper bound on the PGF's annual intervention probability; the second, a restriction on the expected shortfall of an underfunded pension plan that is not closed. Both too low and too high critical funding ratios hurt beneficiaries’ interests, depending on their degree of risk aversion.

The author presents a comparative analysis of old-age pension systems in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using a method of retrospective simulation run on a self-developed model. The model baseline case is a person retiring in December 2014 after 40 years of service with nationwide average salary. Other cases include low and high-earners, funded schemes participants and simulations for modified notional capital valorisation formulae. Three study countries return very dissimilar results, which is caused by differences in their pension systems’ designs. Lack of non-contributory element (basic pension) in Latvia leads to a low degree of progressivity, with inexcusably low pensions to low-earners and excessively generous pensions to high-earners. Participation in funded pillar II schemes has not brought any significant gains to pension plan sharers. Notional capital valorisation rules adopted in different countries that use the NDC-system significantly influence pension amount.

This work aims to carry out a comparative analysis of the pension plans of the employment system (both defined benefit and defined contribution plans) from the point of view of the welfare perceived by each worker. Considering flexibility in the labor supply of the promoting company of the pension scheme, we seek to maximize the utility of the time preferences of consumption and leisure for each employee. We propose a dynamic optimization problem of intertemporal choice, and we describe both the returns on the investments of the Fund and the annual wage growth rates as discrete markovian processes. For each type of pension plan, we analyse the optimal consumption and leisure values that maximize the utility (welfare) of the worker over several periods of time.

Corporate pension schemes are widely spread especially in Northern Europe, North America, Japan. Often the major portion of defined contributions to the scheme is shouldered by the employer. A crucial question for an employee is, whether the return from his/her corporate pension plan - taking into account the corporate engagement and eventually governmental savings promotion - is favourable in comparison to other capital products for the time of retirement. This question is not answered by the absolute return in form of the future pension amount. Additionally, the employee must know the relative return, the Pension Rate of Return (PRR), in relation to what he/she has invested in form of employee contributions into the pension plan during his/her work life. Focussing on better pension information and also on counteraction to melting interest return, two current topics will be addressed. A very useful evaluation instrument for this task is the Generalized Annuity Factor (GAF). It is a generalization of the well-known Annuity Factor, which is restricted to constant payments only. With GAF any time dependent payments, e.g. linear or more complex nonlinear payments over time can be valued by a compressed closed-form formula in the same manner as constant payments by the classic Annuity Factor. Pension payments regarding mortality are such complex payments depending systematically on age. Because of its computational efficiency the new instrument simplifies calculations to be done also in smaller funds, firms or public services with common spreadsheet programs.

In this paper we investigate the optimal investment strategy for a defined contribution (DC) pension plan during the decumulation phrase which is risk-averse and pays close attention to inflation risk. The plan aims to maximize the expected constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility from the terminal wealth by investing the wealth in a financial market consisting of an inflation-indexed bond, an ordinary zero coupon bond and a risk-free asset. We derive the optimal investment strategy in closed-form using the dynamic programming approach by solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. Our theoretical and numerical results reveal that under some rational assumptions, an inflation-indexed bond do has significant advantage to hedge inflation risk.

Defined benefit retirement plans for state and local government employees are underfunded in most jurisdictions. Policymakers and analysts have proposed closing these traditional pensions and enrolling public-sector workers in defined contribution plans similar to 401(k) retirement plans. One objection to such a change is that once a pension plan is closed to new entrants it must adopt a more conservative, lower-yielding investment portfolio that will require higher taxpayer contributions. These higher contributions are referred to as transition costs and increase the cost of pension reforms. I analyze optimal investment portfolios for open and closed pension plans, showing that portfolio allocations differ only slightly and that these differences appear only over long periods. Thus, the actual transition costs associated with pension reforms are likely to be far smaller than has been claimed.

Ohio’s public pension system comprises five state-level plans that have actuarial funding ratios ranging between 67 and 84 percent. Pension plan funding levels are a proxy for the ability of a pension plan to fund its promised benefit payments without additional resources. Volatile and uncertain investment returns mean that even a fully funded pension plan has less than a 50 percent chance of having sufficient assets to fund all accrued future benefit payments, so the likelihood that Ohio’s pension plans can meet their obligations is even less. In this study, we determine the likelihood that Ohio’s major public pension plans will be able to make their accrued, promised future payments using only each plan’s current stock of assets—without future contributions, which are intended to fund benefits that accrue later. Furthermore, we calculate the amount of assets the pension plans would need to increase the likelihood of being able to fund future benefit payments and the effect this has for potential “overfunding.” Overall, we show that traditional funding ratios may be a misleading indicator of a pension plan’s ability to use current assets to pay future benefits.

Physicians raised concerns about the growing financial pressures they’re facing at the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) annual general meeting in Toronto. Some members called on the association to create a pension plan, as well as to advocate for tax reform in the upcoming federal election.

Pension plan sponsors and annuity providers can offload their longevity risk exposures by trading securities that are linked to broad-based mortality indexes. However, a hedge constructed in this way is subject to population basis risk, arising from the difference in mortality improvements between the hedger’s population and the reference population to which the security is linked. To address this problem, which is believed to be a major obstacle to market development, in this paper we contribute a graphical population basis risk metric. The graphical metric allows market participants to not only visually evaluate the extent of population basis risk, but also determine the most appropriate reference population. We illustrate this concept with a hypothetical example.

This article examines the influence of investor knowledge and the cognitive bias that arises from overconfidence on the advice-seeking behaviour of investors managing their own retirement funds. Specifically, we trace whether overestimating one’s own technical and financial abilities can hinder the willingness to seek advice, particularly when it would be in the investors’ best interest to do so. We identify a subset of investors who are not knowledgeable and yet do not seek advice. These investors exhibit overconfidence in their ability to manage a fund, despite holding under-diversified and less sophisticated portfolios relative to their peers. Given the global rise in investors choosing to manage their own retirement funds and the importance of seeking advice in this context, there are direct policy implications from these results. They suggest a need to identify and target investors who display overconfidence since they are most likely to be managing underperforming retirement investments in the longe...

The paper focuses on the payment of lifetime pensions paid by pension companies based on the selected mortality table of the Czech Statistical Office. We assume different input values depending on the size of the Sharpe ratio pension companies from selected countries. This paper aims to identify and assess the impact of the Sharpe ratio on the payment of lifetime pensions in postproduction period. We used data of nominal appreciation of pension companies from the Visegrad countries and Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands in the period 2005-2013. In the empirical analysis we additionally distinguished between guaranteed and non-guaranteed pension funds. For the purpose of calculating lifetime pensions, we used the formula early paid pension by the pension company on the Czech market down in its her pension plan with an expected median payment period of r years. We found link between the value of the Sharpe ratio and the size of lifetime pensions. Conclusion of the paper shows the effects of low performance of pension funds on lifetime pension with a focus on the Czech Republic. The scientific paper describes partial results reached within the project no. 54/2014 of the Internal Grant Agency of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the Mendel University in Brno following the aims and methodology of the given project.

Retirement-account balances are lower among women than men. This study assesses the role of financial knowledge and empowerment in contributing to the gender gap in savings. We evaluate the effects of financial education delivered to women in the workplace, using administrative data on 31,000 public-sector workers in Wisconsin. All of these workers participated in a mandatory defined-benefit pension plan, but 47 percent also participated in a deferred compensation savings instrument provided by their employer, with the median participant contributing 1.6 percent of earnings each month. In a triple-difference strategy, we compare the progression of gender gaps in savings over time at state agencies that implemented financial education with the group that did not. We estimate that a multi-media education effort increased participation in retirement savings by 2.6 percentage points, closing the gender gap by more than half. This result is partially explained by pre-existing trends. The education program operated at low marginal cost and is likely to be portable to other contexts.

Many pension plan participants are inactive. They do not look up information on their retirement income and discover pension gaps too late to take action. We analyze how pension communication framing interventions motivate participants to acquire retirement income information. First, we show that classical loss frames (vs. gain) are an effective intervention, but also evoke negative perceptions and evaluations. Second, we develop new frames (assurance, investment) tapping into the same psychological mechanisms while avoiding loss wording. Based on a field experiment with 7,315 pension plan participants we find assurance framing to be an effective intervention that also avoids evoking negative evaluations.

We investigate whether multiemployer defined-benefit pension plan (MEPP) underfunding is priced by shareholders and creditors. Prior to the FASB's new MEPP standard (effective December 2011), when the disclosures on such plans were sparse, we find evidence (some evidence) that our estimate of a firm's share of MEPP underfunding is credit (value) relevant. We also find some evidence that a proxy for the funded status of a firm's MEPPs is incrementally value relevant over and above the firm's cash contributions, but no evidence that it is credit relevant. Furthermore, an estimate of MEPP underfunding that incorporates the additional disclosures required under the new MEPP standard is value and credit relevant, both individually and incrementally, over and above our old estimate. Overall, our findings suggest that shareholders and creditors view MEPP underfunding as a debt-like obligation and that the additional MEPP disclosures under the new standard are useful to market participants.

This work proposes a method to optimize the timing of contributions paid by a sponsor to a pension fund, in a regime switching economy. We consider a defined benefit pension plan during the accumulation phase. During this phase, contribution calls occur at discrete times and are converted into assets, after deduction of transaction costs. The dynamics of assets managed by the pension fund is modeled by an exponential switching Brownian motion, able to recreate changes in the economic conjuncture. The approach developed in this work is based on grids, with trinomial links, discretizing the asset return in each economic regime. We also study the impact on the optimal impulse strategy, of liquidity risks and of a delay between contribution calls and the effective purchase of assets.

Studies examining pension distribution choices have found that the tendency of private-sector workers is to select lump sum distributions instead of life annuities resulting in leakage of retirement savings. In the public sector, defined benefit pensions usually offer lump sum distributions equal to employee contributions, not the present value of the annuity. Thus, for terminating employees that are younger or have shorter tenures, the lump sum distribution amount may exceed the present value of the annuity. We discuss the factors that may influence the choice to withdraw funds or not in this environment. Using administrative data from the North Carolina state and local government retirement systems, we find that over two-thirds of public sector workers under age 50 separating prior to retirement from public plans in North Carolina left their accounts open and did not request a cash distribution from the pension system within one year of separation. Furthermore, the evidence suggests many separating workers, particularly those with short tenure, may be forgoing substantial monetary benefits due to lack of knowledge, understanding, or accessibility of benefits. We find no evidence of a bias toward cash distributions for public employees in North Carolina.

This article provides an overview of the unique issues that normally arise under a cash balance pension plan to conform with qualified domestic relations orders (or QDRO). Presently, many plan administrators treat a cash balance plan just like a defined contribution plan only to find that the benefits within a cash balance plan are not as easily divided as those within a defined contribution plan. The apparent similarity of hypothetical account balances in a cash balance plan and the actual account balances in a 401(k) plan can result in mishandled QDROs. The similarities between a cash balance plan and a traditional defined benefit plan can also confound plan administrators, particularly when a defined benefit plan was subsequently converted to cash balance plan. Then all or a part of a participant’s benefit subject to a QDRO has the option to be determined under a traditional defined benefit formula, such as a percentage of final average pay. And while a QDRO administered under a pure cash balance plan can split the benefit in a fashion similar to that used for 401(k) plans, QDROs remain distinct and involve important differences between a cash balance plan and a 401(k) or other defined contribution plans. These unique features of a cash balance plan can drastically affect the monetary impact on alternate payees. To fulfill the duties prescribed under both ERISA and the IRC, plan administrators must engage in a very targeted fact-specific analysis involving the participant (employee), alternate payee and the Plan within a taut web of federal laws, regulations and mandates.

This paper examines the impact of a defined benefit (DB) pension plan freeze on the sponsoring firm’s risk and risk-taking activities. Using a sample of firms declaring a hard freeze on their DB plans during the period 2002-2007, we observe an increase in total risk (standard deviation of returns) following a DB plan freeze. This increase in overall risk is attributable to an increase in idiosyncratic risk, as we do not observe any significant change in systematic risk for firms freezing DB plans. Consistent with the increase in risk, yields on bonds issued by firms freezing their DB plans also increase significantly after the freeze event. When we examine investment strategies, we observe a shift in investment from capital expenditures before the freeze to more-risky R&D projects after the freeze. Firms also increase leverage following DB plan freezes. These strategies (increased focus on R&D and higher leverage) increase the operating and financial risk the firm faces. Overall, we observe an increase in risk-taking following DB plan freezes, consistent with theories that DB plans act as “internal debt” that aligns managers’ interests with bondholders.

Sila Nanotechnologies and Amprius Technologies, two firms developing silicon-rich materials as alternatives to standard graphite for lithium-ion battery anodes, have secured new private investments to help push their technologies into the marketplace. Sila has received $45 million from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in exchange for equity. The investment takes the California-based company’s funds raised this year to $210 million. Sila says it will use the new cash to ramp up production. It aims to start supplying its silicon nanocomposite anode material to makers of batteries for consumer electronics starting next year. Meanwhile, Stanford University spin-off Amprius says it has received an undisclosed “strategic investment” from the aerospace firm Airbus. Amprius’s silicon anodes are used in batteries that power Airbus’s Zephyr, a stratosphere-traveling satellite known as a pseudosatellite. Lux Research analyst Chloe Holzinger says she expects Amprius to use the new funding “to expand productio...

The Public Employee Pension Reform Act became effective in 2013. It will take many years before it has a meaningful impact on pension plan underfunding due to the so-called California Rule under which public employees are guaranteed the pension benefits in force on the date of hire. Meanwhile, three California cities have filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy and more will follow. In an effort to annul the California Rule, and allow employers to change benefit accruals prospectively, the mayors of San Jose and four other cities have sponsored an initiative to amend the California constitution to allow public employers to alter pension benefit formulas prospectively. This article appraises these several developments and their interaction.

Over the past two and a half decades, a number of large employers have converted their traditional defined benefit plans to hybrid plans. Plan conversions are based on employer and employee preferences, and the desirability of hybrid plans depends on economic conditions, the regulatory environment, and legal uncertainty. The authors examine the factors that affected plan sponsors’ decisions to convert traditional DB plans to hybrid plans during years 2000–2009, a period characterized by adverse economic conditions, legal controversies, and regulatory change. They examine the pension choices of Fortune 1000 companies and estimate the likelihood of plan conversions as a function of the financial status of the plan sponsor, pension plan funding, and costs. The timing of plan conversions relative to major changes in federal regulations, specifically the passage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the economic crisis, are explored. Finally, they examine whether the factors that prompted conversions in the early part of the decade were the same as those that prompted similar conversions later in the decade.

We use UK data to show that firms that sponsor a defined-benefit pension plan are less likely to be targeted in an acquisition and, conditional on an attempted takeover, they are less likely to be acquired. Our explanation is that the uncertainty in the value of pension liabilities is a source of risk for acquirers of the firm's shares, which works as a takeover deterrent. In support of this explanation we find that these same firms are more likely to use cash when acquiring other firms, and that the announcement of a cash acquisition is associated with positive announcement effects.

We develop and test a new approach to assess defined benefit pension plan solvency risk in the presence of extreme market movements. Our method captures both the ‘fat-tailed’ nature of asset returns and their correlation with discount rate changes. We show that the standard assumption of constant discount rates leads to dramatic underestimation of future projections of pension plan solvency risk. Failing to incorporate leptokurtosis into asset returns also leads to downward biased estimates of risk, but this is less pronounced than the time-varying discount rate e§ect. Further modifying the model to capture the correlation between asset returns and the discount rate provides additional improvements in the projection of future pension plan solvency. This reduces the perceived future risk of underfunding because of the negative correlation between interest rate changes and asset returns. These results have important implications for those with responsibility for balancing risk against expected return when seeking to improve the current poor funding positions of defined benefit pension schemes.

This article analyzes China's pension arrangement and notes that China has recently established a universal non-contributory pension plan covering urban non-employed workers and all rural residents, combined with the pension plan covering urban employees already in place. Further, in the latest reform, China has discontinued the special pension plan for civil servants and integrated this privileged welfare class into the urban old-age pension insurance program. With these steps, China has achieved a degree of universalism and integration of its pension arrangement unprecedented in the non-Western world. Despite this radical pension transformation strategy, we argue that the current Chinese pension arrangement represents a case of "incomplete" universalism. First, its benefit level is low. Moreover, the benefit level varies from region to region. Finally, universalism in rural China has been undermined due to the existence of the "policy bundle." Additionally, we argue that the 2015 pension reform has created a situation in which the stratification of Chinese pension arrangements has been "flattened," even though it remains stratified to some extent.

This chapter will look at two New Deal programs that used the tax system to fund unemployment insurance and old-age pensions as part of the SSA of 1935. The focus in the first part of this chapter will be on the views of the supporters of the SSA; the second part will deal with its critics. In both parts, the discussion will revolve around a living wage. It will also describe how unemployment insurance and old-age pensions were part of a consumerist New Deal program to increase purchasing power. Still, the relationship between social security and a living wage will be the main focus of this chapter.

Recent pension reforms in Italy require individuals to decide whether to participate in pension funds, how much to contribute, and how to invest their wealth, raising concerns about their ability to deal with financial matters. Using the Bank of Italy's Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), our empirical analysis shows that most individuals lack knowledge of basic concepts such as interest rates and inflation. Men, the more educated, and residents in the Centre–North possess higher financial literacy. We also find that financial literacy has a positive and significant impact on the probability of pension plan participation.

The authors analyze the Arkansas teacher pension plan and empirically gauge the behavioral response to incentives embedded in that plan and to possible reforms. The pattern of pension wealth accrual creates sharp incentives to work until eligible for early or normal retirement, often in one's early fifties, and to separate shortly thereafter. We estimate the effect of pension wealth accrual on teacher separation decisions using a new longitudinal data set of Arkansas teachers and find a significant impact. We then simulate the response to eliminating early retirement and raising the service requirement for normal retirement. We also simulate a shift to a constant accrual retirement plan. The response to both reforms is complex, as some would leave earlier and others stay longer. A constant accrual plan smoothes the pattern of retirement behavior as individuals tailor decisions to their own preferences instead of those built into the pension formula. © 2010 American Education Finance Association

This article develops a market-based liability valuation model to price individual pension costs of a Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan. The purpose is to compare them with the new labour pension plan, Individual Pension Accounts (IPAs), in the case of Taiwan. The results based on the numerical approach show that the new IPAs cost a company more than the old DB plan, except if the average wage growth relative to the risk-free interest rate is high enough.

This paper examines the optimal design of pension plans when the health status during retirement is uncertain. Assuming that the health status affects both life expectancy and the marginal utility of consumption, choice between a lump-sum payment and an annuity can be welfare-enhancing if the health status is not observable by pension plan providers. This result holds if the marginal utility of consumption and life expectancy are negatively correlated. On equity grounds, a lump-sum option can be justified even if the marginal utility of consumption is independent of life expectancy.

This study empirically tests whether freezing or closing a defined-benefit (DB) pension plan increases the sponsoring company’s market value. The database used for this study consists of 82 publicly traded U.S. companies that announced freezes/closes in 2003–2007. On the basis of this extensive sample and through a set of parametric and nonparametric tests under the event study methodology, the study finds generally negative or insignificant abnormal returns in stock prices that can be associated with the freeze/close events. Little evidence supports the hypothesis that freezing or closing a DB plan increases company value.

This study utilizes pension plan level 5500 data from the Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service to investigate the determinants of traditional defined benefit plan conversion to hybrid cash balance plans during the 1990s. Incorporating the possibility of plan termination instead of plan conversion, the author finds a negative effect of plan funding status, union status, the number of total defined benefit plans at the firm, and plan contributions on the likelihood of plan conversion. The number of active participants and total defined contribution plans at the firm positively affect the probability of conversion. Plans at firms with at least one union plan were less likely to terminate. Additionally, the number of defined benefit plans at the firm and plan contributions had a negative effect on the likelihood of plan termination. Industry fixed effects were significant in all specifications.