Since 1990, most pension plans have shifted the responsibility for directing pension assets to the employee. This study summarizes some of the possible explanations for this rapid shift toward participant direction and uses IRS Form 5500 data to investigate the effect of worker and plan...

This study argues that the promotion of union goals could have positive, negative, or neutral effects on risk adjusted return performance. Moreover, the union's ability and incentive to use pension assets to promote union goals will vary with the design of the pension. Using panel data on over...

A board’s ability and disposition to monitor management, estimated as Board Co-option, affects the firm’s pension policy. I implement a novel board monitoring measure as the percentage of directors appointed after the CEO assumes office, Board Co-option, and find that as Board Co-option...

Using a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of an increase in default risk on firm actions, I find little evidence managers shift risk to corporate pension plans following an exogenous shock to the firm's long-term liabilities. The finding is robust to focusing on firms where the...

This study examined the profit-share pension model as a potential vehicle for generating capital accumulation and effecting a progressive redistribution of wealth. Taking the functions of the pension mechanism as the guiding principle, we attempted to incorporate a profit-share fund into a three...

We investigate changes in workers' participation and contributions to defined contribution (DC) plans during the Great Recession of 2007–2009. Using longitudinal information from W-2 tax records matched to a nationally representative sample of respondents from the Survey of Income and Program...

In June 2012, the regulatory framework for a promising new retirement savings vehicle, Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs), was passed into Canadian federal legislation. The hope is that PRPPs will improve pension coverage and retirement-saving outcomes by reducing costs and improving...

This paper extends the accounting academic literature on pension funding strategy by looking at a more recent data set, directly examining contributions to defined benefit pension plans, and considering the effect of changing economic conditions over time on pension plan funding. I find that the...

As Ontario pushes ahead with pension reform to improve retirement security for its citizens, it should consider a “middle-way” solution between current competing visions for reform, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe institute. In “Helping Ontarians Save for Retirement:...