Theory predicts that stockholders of firms with defined-benefit pension plans will engage in risk-shifting by underfunding plans and investing plan assets in risky securities, as their firms approach distress. The empirical evidence so far has, however, been consistent more with risk-management...

Because public firms are not required to disclose the monetary value of pension plans in their executive pay disclosures, financial economists have generally analyzed executive pay using figures that do not include the value of such pension plans. This paper presents evidence that omitting the...

We combine survey data from retirement plan members with information from interviews with plan executives to get both perspectives on who accepts the default plan and default investment option and why. We use a natural experiment in default construction where a new regulatory framework required...

Pensions and deferred compensation represent substantial components of CEO incentives. We study stockholder and bondholder reactions to companies' initial reports of CEOs' inside debt positions following a 2007 SEC disclosure reform. We find that bond prices rise, equity prices fall, and the...

Pensions and deferred compensation represent substantial components of CEO incentives. We study stockholder and bondholder reactions to companies' initial reports of CEOs' inside debt positions following a 2007 SEC disclosure reform. We find that bond prices rise, equity prices fall, and the...