We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how a web-based retirement saving calculator affects workers' retirement-savings decisions. In both conditions, the calculator projects workers' retirement income goal. In the treatment condition, it also projects retirement income based on...

Medium- and long-run dynamics undermine the effect of automatic enrollment and default savings-rate auto-escalation on retirement savings. Our analysis of nine 401(k) plans incorporates the facts that employees frequently leave firms (often before matching contributions from their employer have...

Planning for retirement and subsequent execution of the plan are difficult, but essential for financial security in old age. To formally analyse the interplay between planning and self-control, I introduce cognitive costs of formulating a plan into the dual-self model of impulse control. The...

This paper presents a review by the Employee Benefit Research Institute of 251 401(k) plan sponsors that have suspended matching contributions for their approximately 4.4 million workers. The review found that those employing 50 percent of the workers also maintained an open defined benefit...

This paper considers the impact that plan design might have on annuitization rates across different plans. The key finding of this study is that differences in DB plan rules or features result in very different annuitization rates in DB plans. In fact, the results show that the rate of...

I test whether the introduction of a new pension standard (FRS 17) in the U.K., which virtually eliminated the smoothing mechanisms in pension accounting, is associated with a reallocation of assets from equities to bonds in defined benefit pension plans. My findings indicate that sample firms...

Pension experts have long conjectured that pension accounting rules encourage firms to invest pension assets in risky asset classes (Zion and Carcache 2003, Gold 2005). The recent passage of IAS 19 Employee Benefits (Revised) (hereafter, “IAS 19R”) marks a fundamental shift in pension...

This study empirically analyzes over 3300 judgments on the long term and short term usefulness of individual firm pension accounting estimates over ten consecutive years (2001-2010). We find that the point estimates allowed by GAAP create challenges for auditors and do not appear to be useful...