The Effect of Pension Design on Employer Costs and Employee Retirement Choices
The Effect of Pension Design on Employer Costs and Employee Retirement Choices

Author: John Chalmers

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a rich setting in which to study the effect of pension design on employer costs and employee retirement-timing decisions. PERS pays retirees the maximum benefit calculated using three formulas that can be characterized as defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC), and a combination of DB and DC. From the employer's perspective, we show that this "maximum benefit" calculation is costly. Average ex post retirement benefits are 54% higher than they if had been calculated using only the DB formula. Monte Carlo simulations verify that the higher cost could have been predicted at the start of our sample period. From the employee's perspective, we show that plan design distorts the retirement-timing decision: employees receiving DC benefits are significantly more likely to retire before the normal retirement age than employees receiving DB benefits. Exploiting two sources of exogenous variation in the level of the DC benefit, we show that employees respond to within-year variation in their retirement incentives and, consistent with peer effects, that they respond more strongly to these incentives when more of their coworkers face similar incentives. Finally, consistent with the emerging literature on financial mistakes by households, we show that a small but significant fraction of retirees would benefit from shifting their retirements by as little as one month.

Pension Design and Structure
Pension Design and Structure

Author: Olivia S. Mitchell

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2004-07-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0191534242

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Employees are increasingly asked to make sophisticated decisions about their pension and healthcare plans. Yet recent research shows that the decisions 'real' people make are often not those of the careful and well-informed economic agent conventionally portrayed in economic research. Rather, decision-makers tend to operate with flawed information and make some of the most critical financial decisions of their lives lacking a full understanding of the options before them and the implications of their decisions. Pension Design and Structure explores the assumptions behind commonly-held theories of retirement decision-making, in order to draw out the consequences of frontier research in behavioral finance and economics for those interested in better design and structure of retirement pensions. Using large datasets newly provided by financial service firms and real-world experiments, this volume tests the hypotheses of this research. This is the first book to explore the implications of behavioral finance research for pensions and retirement studies. The authors blend cutting-edge research from several fields including Finance, Economics, Management, Sociology, and Psychology. The book will be of interest to pension plan participants and sponsors, financial service groups responsible for pensions, and retirement system regulators.

Public Employee Retention Responses to Alternative Retirement Plan Design
Public Employee Retention Responses to Alternative Retirement Plan Design

Author: David M. Knapp

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13:

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Policy makers in South Carolina are considering changes to retirement benefits for public employees to make employer costs more predictable, reduce risk and uncertainty, and to shore up long-run funding of their pension system. These reforms typically involve prospective benefit reductions, contribution increases, or both for future entrants. Typically, alternative proposals are assessed in terms of their effects on pension cost and risk. We evaluate the impact of a range of potential pension reforms on employee retention. Using estimated economic models of the retention behavior of South Carolina public employees, we simulate the retention responses of these employees. We find that changes in pension design, especially changes in the design of the defined benefit (DB) plan, create behavioral responses that influence how long these employees remain in public service. Further, reforms to the state's DB plan influence its relative value compared to the state optional alternative retirement plan, a defined contribution plan (DC), leading to shifts in employee choice between these plans. We also considered recent reform proposals which have included an enhancement to the DC plan and a hybrid DB/DC plan. Both plans are predicted to lead to relatively small changes in employee retention, suggesting limited impact to employee turnover and longevity relative to the status quo. We find that our example hybrid plan comes closest to achieving no change in employee retention relative to the current DB plan with a slight increase or decrease in the average length of service depending on the group of public employees examined. The key implication of our analysis is that pension reform proposals should consider not just the effects of the proposals on pension funding and risk but also the effects on retention and the experience mix of the workforce.

Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm
Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

Author: Robert L. Clark

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2005-08-11

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0191536415

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This book explores how rising pension and healthcare costs, along with workforce aging, are affecting pension and retirement planning around the world. Many middle-aged workers now realize that they will have to work longer than intended, as they begin to recognize that their retirement resources will be inadequate to finance retirement consumption. Volatile capital markets, rising medical-care costs, and low saving rates make retirement behavior and policy a moving target. Olivia Mitchell, executive director of The Pension Research Council at Wharton, and Robert L. Clark, Professor of Business Management and Economics at North Carolina State University, explore these themes with colleagues, touching on a diverse set of issues ranging from employment trends to pension accounting and investment, to retirement system overhaul. They illustrate how employers are actively reformulating the meaning of work and retirement, seeking to encourage more people to work longer than ever before in the face of projected labor shortages. At the same time, public and private trust in traditional pension offerings is rapidly eroding, as companies alter, amend, and terminate their conventional plans in the face of poor investment performance and new methods of pension accounting. Experts from the UK, the US, Japan, Sweden, and Canada offer international perspectives on the evolving institutions of retirement practice. This book provides readers a range of insights and strategies not available in other volumes, and it represents an invaluable addition to the PRC/OUP series. It will be particularly valuable for managers working toward more efficient pension plans; to scholars and policymakers seeking to maximize pension design and effectiveness; and to actuaries and tax specialists concerned with pension regulation. The Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was founded 50 years ago to encourage research and teaching on pensions and retirement security. Council projects address the long-term issues that underlie contemporary concerns and seek to broaden public understanding of these complex arrangements through research into their social, economic, legal, actuarial, and financial foundations of privately and publicly-provided benefits.

Employee Pensions
Employee Pensions

Author: Teresa Ghilarducci

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780913447956

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Describes policy directions, especially defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans, and their implications for both employers and employees. Reflects on issues of partial retirement, multi-employers plans, savings plans, and the potential and pitfalls of US Federal pension policy.

Assessing Knowledge of Retirement Behavior
Assessing Knowledge of Retirement Behavior

Author: Panel on Retirement Income Modeling

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1996-08-13

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0309589533

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This book brings together in one volume what researchers have learned about workers, employers, and retirees that is important for formulating retirement income policies. As the U.S. population ages, there is increasing uncertainty about the solvency of the Social Security and Medicare systems and the adequacy of private pensions to provide for people's retirement needs. The volume covers such critical behaviors as workers' decisions to retire, people's choices of saving over consumption, and employers' decisions about hiring older workers and providing pension and health care benefits. Also covered are trends in mortality, health status, and health care costs that are key to projecting the likely costs and effects of alternative retirement income security policies and a strategy for combining data and research knowledge into a policy modeling framework.

Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment
Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment

Author: Jeffrey R. Brown

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-12-15

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0226076504

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Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment analyzes the changing economic and demographic environment in which social insurance programs that benefit elderly households will operate. It also explores how these ongoing trends will affect future beneficiaries, under both the current social security program and potential reform options. In this volume, an esteemed group of economists probes the challenge posed to Social Security by an aging population. The researchers examine trends in private sector retirement saving and health care costs, as well as the uncertain nature of future demographic, economic, and social trends—including marriage and divorce rates and female participation in the labor force. Recognizing the ambiguity of the environment in which the Social Security system must operate and evolve, this landmark book explores factors that policymakers must consider in designing policies that are resilient enough to survive in an economically and demographically uncertain society.

Managing Pension and Retirement Plans
Managing Pension and Retirement Plans

Author: August J. Baker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-10-28

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0190290218

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As the U.S. Population ages, retirement is becoming an increasingly important life stage. Pension and retirement plans are crucial to the financial well-being of older citizens and key determinants of their standard of living. Many varieties of pension plans are currently offered, and employers have an interest in these plans because a good pension plan can help an employer attract, retain, and motivate a competent workforce. In some cases, the employer's financial health can depend significantly on the financial health of its pension plan. When employers make decisions regarding pension and retirement plans, they are making decisions that have high stakes for both their employees and the employer itself. Poor decisions can lead to intense scrutiny, sometimes by the media or in the courtroom. Good pension decision making can provide a secure future for the employer and its employees. Managing Pension and Retirement Plans: A Guide for Employers, Administrators and Other Fiduciaries covers the essential financial issues surrounding pension plans. It discusses investment policy and strategy, performance measurement, fiduciary responsibilities, and labor market issues, among other topics. Anyone responsible for any aspect of pension plan management will profit from reading this book.