We argue that we should see a negative relationship between the share of risky assets in the default fund of a defined contribution (DC) pension plan and the average plan member age if trustees design the default fund in line with predictions from the life-cycle portfolio choice theory. Adoption...

We use the 2008 crisis as an exogenous shock to the annual pension funding ratios of U.S. corporate defined benefit (DB) pension plans to examine the causal impact on the assumption of expected return on pension assets (EROA). Contrary to prior literature, we find that DB pension plans...

We show that incorporating defined benefit pension funds in an asset pricing model with incomplete markets improves its ability to jointly match the historical equity premium and riskless rate, and has important implications for risk sharing. We emphasize the importance of the pension fund's...