Employer matching of employee 401(k) contributions can provide a powerful incentive to save for retirement and is a key component in pension-plan design in the United States. Using detailed administrative contribution, earnings, and pension-plan data from the Health and Retirement Study, this...

This paper investigates scale economies and the optimal scale of pension funds, estimating different cost functions with varying assumptions about the shape of the underlying average cost function: Ushaped versus monotonically declining. Using unique data for Dutch pension funds over 1992-2009,...

Administrative and investment costs per participant appear to vary widely across pension funds. These costs are important because they reduce the rate of return on the investments of pension funds and consequently raise the cost of retirement security. This paper examines the impact of...

This paper is the first that formally compares investment risk taking by pension funds and insurance firms. Using a unique and extended dataset that covers the volatile investment period 1995-2009, we find that, in the Netherlands, insurers take substantially less investment risk than pension...

Developed countries apply different security mechanisms in regulation to protect defined pension benefits: solvency requirements, a pension guarantee fund, and sponsor support. We test the performance of these mechanisms in terms of the protection offered to pension benefits in relation to the...

This paper models policy responses to changes in solvency by Dutch occupational pension funds using a unique panel dataset containing the balance sheets of all registered pension funds in the Netherlands over a period of 15 years (1993-2007). The model describes how nominal pension rights are...

Adequate funding of occupational pension plans is key to benefit security. Across countries different methods of securing funding exist: solvency requirements, a pension guarantee fund, and sponsor support. The key goal of this paper is to investigate the welfare implications to the beneficiary...

In this paper we derive an analytic valuation formula for a generalized form of liabilities in hybrid pension plans taking account of both equity and interest rate risk. Comparative statistics are carried out to show the relevance of some key parameters in defining the hybrid pension plans,...

In the domain of pension statistics comparability of pension entitlements across countries improved substantially due to new SNA/ESA recommendations. In the near future, inclusion of unfunded employment related pension schemes in the core accounts or in the supplementary table on pensions will...

This paper compares two different types of annuity providers, i.e. defined benefit pension funds and life insurance companies. One of the key differences is that the residual risk in pension funds is collectively borne by the beneficiaries and the sponsor while in the case of life insurers, it...