The role of guarantees in pension plan design: Pension saving decisions

This study centers on the assessment of psychological value of guarantees in pension products and the behavior biases associated with choice. When a guarantee on a product increases from 99% to 99,5% less than half of respondents show willingness to pay in contrast with 73% when going from 99,5% to 100%. Out of 105 respondents, 55 show that their choices concerning pension products are inconsistent with classic utility theory. Financial background proves insignificant thus pointing to behavioral biases. As individuals make choices that leave them worse-off, we argue that pension plan design would highly benefit from public policy interventions.

Pension plan funding and stock market efficiency

The paper argues that the market signifficantly overvalues firms with severely underfunded pension plans. These companies earn lower stock returns than firms with healthier pension plans for at least five years after the first emergence of the underfunding. The low returns are not explained by risk, price momentum, earnings momentum, or accruals. Further, the evidence suggests that investors do not anticipate the impact of the pension liability on future earnings, and they are surprised when the negative implications of underfunding ultimately materialize. Finally, underfunded firms have poor operating performance, and they earn low returns, although they are value companies.

An Analysis of pension plan costs, 1972-1976 : final report /

Mode of access: Internet.

Pension coverage and vesting among private wage and salary workers, 1979 : preliminary estimates from the 1979 survey of pension plan coverage /

Includes bibliographical references.

Multiemployer pension plan data are inaccurate and incomplete : report /

"B-209057"--Prelim. p.

Interim report of activities of the private welfare and pension plan study, 1971 [microform] : report, pursuant to S. Res. 35, section 4 (92d Cong., 1st sess.) (together with additional views)

Reuse of record except for individual research requires license from Congressional Information Service, Inc.

Effects of the 1980 Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act on plan participants' benefits : report to the Congress /

"GAO/HRD-85-58."

Public Employee Pension Plan Reporting and Accountability Act of 1982 : report of the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives on H.R. 4928 together with a dissenting view (to accompany H.R. 4928 which on November 10, 1981, was jointly referred to the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on Ways and Means) (including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office).

"May 17, 1982."

Private pension plan reform. Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, first session.

Hearings held May 21-June 12, 1973.

Pension plan complexity : hearing before the Subcommittee on Private Retirement Plans and Oversight of the Internal Revenue Service of the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, One Hundred First Congress, second session.

"August 3, 1990"--Pt. 2.

Private pension plan reform : a summary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) /

"November 12, 1981."

Digest of testimony on proposals for private pension plan reform before the Subcommittee on Private Pension Plans.

At head of title: Committee print.