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...

The paper deals with the question of whether it is possible to combine the insights and recommendations of optimal individual lifecycle investing with the proven gains of defined benefit pension funds. These gains primarily stem from cost efficiency and (intergenerational) risk sharing. We...

This paper explores the effect of letting individuals choose their retirement age in a world of uncertainty where there exist both defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pension plans. The paper shows that giving individuals the flexibility to determine when to retire is an important...

Target date funds in corporate retirement plans grew from $5B in 2000 to $734B in 2018, partly because federal regulation sanctioned these as default investments in automatic enrollment plans. We show that adopters delegated pension investment decisions to fund managers selected by plan...

Target date funds in corporate retirement plans grew from $5B in 2000 to $734B in 2018, partly because federal regulation sanctioned these as default investments in automatic enrollment plans. We show that adopters delegated pension investment decisions to fund managers selected by plan...

Default features in defined-contribution plans are designed to improve the retirement security of plan participants. To date, these have focused on the challenge of saving, ignoring the more complex challenge of dissaving. Automatic default provisions for drawing down participant account...

This paper is the sixth annual cross-sectional analysis update of the EBRI IRA Database. It includes results on the distribution of individual retirement account (IRA) types and account balances, contributions, rollovers, withdrawals, and asset allocation in IRAs for 2014, the latest data...

This paper assesses the level of sophistication evident in investment choices of a large sample of individuals drawn from three Australian retirement savings funds. Available US and UK evidence is somewhat mixed on both the measures that should be used when measuring the sophistication as well...

This paper examines the retirement savings investment choices of Australian workers over a three year period, including the global financial crisis (GFC). The analysis is based on a large sample of 3.6 million members drawn from five superannuation funds with assets of $74 billion. Australian...

The trend towards eliminating defined benefit (DB) pension plans in favour of defined contribution (DC) plans implies that increasing numbers of pension plan participants will bear the risk that final realized portfolio values may be insufficient to fund desired retirement cash flows. We compare...