A comprehensive financial and superannuation projection model is developed to investigate the impact of the introduction of AASB 119 on employer sponsors of defined benefit superannuation funds. A model Plan is projected forward 25 to 30 years. It is found that closing a plan to new entrants can...

On 4 August 2011 the Japanese Diet passed an amendment enabling company employees to contribute to corporate defined contribution pension plans. Until then only employers were able to contribute. As a result of the amendment, however, plan participants are able since January 2012 to make their...

The central thesis of this paper is that defined-benefit (DB) pensions in conjunction with taxpayer-backed DB pension insurance subject pension plan participants and taxpayers to much greater financial risk than current pension funding statistics suggest. Specifically, it is shown that: (i)...

Defined-benefit (DB) pension funds, which are often underfunded, rely on the legal obligation of their sponsor to secure pension rights. This paper is the first to solve the optimal portfolio choice problem of pension funds taking into account the risk on the sponsor's guarantee, and we show...

This paper investigates the characteristics of US and Canadian pension funds that allocate assets to hedge funds. The typical pension fund that invests in hedge funds is a large sophisticated pension fund that diversifies its portfolio across numerous classes of investments, private equity in...

In the US, Defined Benefit Plans are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Taking account of the facts that the PBGC covers only the residual deficits of the pension fund the sponsoring company is unable to cover and that the plans can be prematurely terminated, we consider...

We propose a generational plan for the occupational pension provision in which people from the same generation are pooled in a generational fund. Each fund can set its own policies independently. This plan provides the benefits of differentiation missing in the prevailing collective plan and the...

We use a large sample of private sponsors' defined benefit pension plans to document economically significant differences in the magnitude of plan return volatility for private versus publicly-traded sponsors. The main drivers of pension plan risk taking are different for public and private...

This paper investigates the determinants of public pension plan risk-taking behavior using the percentage of total plan assets invested in the equity markets and the pension asset beta as measures of investment risk. We find that government accounting standards strongly affect public fund...

Two issues may have a tremendous impact on the adequacy of retirement income for today's workers: The growth of 401(k) pension plans and the possible privatization of Social Security. Workers are becoming increasingly responsible for the adequacy of their retirement income by determining how...