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...

With the passage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the Department of Labor regulation regarding qualified default investment alternatives, automatic enrollment and default investments featuring more equities are likely to become more popular. This analysis compares the investment...

This stochastic simulation analysis compares funding costs and volatilities for private sponsors of traditional defined benefit (DB), pension equity (PE), cash balance (CB), and defined contribution (DC) retirement plans. Plan provisions of equivalent benefit generosity in the different plan...

Discussions are often anchored at fees when investment offerings, such as target date funds, are being vetted for defined contribution plans. A decomposition of wealth accumulation over the life cycle demonstrates the foremost role of persistent savings and, on this foundation, the power of...

Several recent assessments suggest that the majority of U.S. workers are at risk of having inadequate resources to maintain their work-life standards of living in retirement. These assessments are often based on models that fail to reflect patterns of income, consumption and savings that vary...

Whether U.S. workers are saving adequately for retirement is an important subject for employer and public policy. The optimal target levels of retirement savings are here determined through a comprehensive consumption and savings model in a life-long planning framework. The actual wealth...

We study market reactions to the announcement of a company closing their defined benefit pension plan in the UK to future accrual. For a sample of 48 plan closures, observed between 2006 and 2013, the empirical tests show a relatively muted market reaction on average. Although estimated returns...