U.S. corporate sponsors of defined benefit (DB) pension plans in recent years have been de‐risking by paying premiums to transfer their pension plan assets and liabilities to the balance sheets of third‐party insurers. The passage of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act...

To establish existing savings behavior, it is necessary to estimate the percentage of workers with an employment-based retirement plan, and to know the characteristics of workers with and without a plan - the subject of this paper. The findings show that there has been a significant increase in...

Questions are often raised about who is entitled to death or survivor benefits from a federally regulated employee benefit plan, whether for federal employees, or for private employees by a plan governed by ERISA. The following principles generally resolve these questions: • Federal law does...

Recent empirical findings by Allan and Clark (NBER WP1677, 1985) show that the pension wealth of union beneficiaries is dramatically greater than that of nonunion beneficiaries. Other findings by these and other authors show that union pension plans are more likely to be underfunded. Ippolito...

The discount rate represents a critical choice in accounting for corporate defined-benefit pension plans due to the long-term nature of pension liabilities. U.S. GAAP and IFRS mandate the AA corporate bond rate. Their requirement is subject to much debate, with the risk-free rate and the...