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Guaranteeing Defined Contribution Pensions: The Option to Buy-Back a Defined Benefit Promise

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Author Info
Marie-Eve Lachance
Olivia S. Mitchell

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Abstract

After a long commitment to defined benefit (DB) pension plans for US public sect or employees, many state legislatures have introduced defined contribution (DC) plans for their public employees. In this process, investment risk which was previously borne by state DB plans has now devolved to employees covered by the new DC plans. In light of this trend, some states have proposed a guarantee mechanism to help protect DC plan participants. One such guarantee takes the form of an option permitting DC plan participants to bu y back their DB benefit for a price. This paper develops a theoretical framewor k to analyze the option design and illustrate how employee characteristics influ ence the option's cost. We illustrate the potential magnitude of a buy-back opt ion value enacted recently by the State of Florida for its public employees. If employees were to exercise the buy-back option optimally, the market value of t his option could represent up to 100 percent of the DC contributions over the wo rklife.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 8731.

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Date of creation: Jan 2002
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8731

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G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
H - Public Economics

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  1. Bodie, Zvi, 1990. "Pensions as Retirement Income Insurance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 28-49, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Olivia S. Mitchell & James M. Poterba & Mark J. Warshawsky, . "New Evidence on the Money's Worth of Individual Annuities," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-9, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
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  3. Olivia S. Mitchell, . "Developments in Pensions," Pension Research Council Working Papers 98-4, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania. [Downloadable!]
  4. Margrabe, William, 1978. "The Value of an Option to Exchange One Asset for Another," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(1), pages 177-86, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Olivia S. Mitchell & Flavio Ataliba Barreto, . "After Chile, What? Second-Round Social Security Reforms in Latin America," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-4, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
  6. Martin Feldstein, 2005. "Reducing the Risk of Investment-Based Social Security Reform," NBER Working Papers 11084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. James F. Moore & Olivia S. Mitchell, . "Projected Retirement Wealth and Saving Adequacy," Pension Research Council Working Papers 98-1, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
  8. Cox, John C & Ingersoll, Jonathan E, Jr & Ross, Stephen A, 1985. "An Intertemporal General Equilibrium Model of Asset Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(2), pages 363-84, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. John Geanakoplos & Olivia S. Mitchell & Stephen P. Zeldes, . "Social Security Money's Worth," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-20, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Olivia S. Mitchell & David McCarthy, 2002. "Annuities for an Ageing World," NBER Working Papers 9092, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Sule Sahin & Adem Yavuz Elveren, 2009. "A Cost Analysis of a Minimum Pension Guarantee for the Individual Pension System in Turkey," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2009_13, University of Utah, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Ngee-Choon Chia & Albert K C Tsui, 2005. "Medical Savings Accounts in Singapore: How much is adequate?," SCAPE Policy Research Working Paper Series 0502, National University of Singapore, Department of Economics, SCAPE. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Ngee-Choon Chia & Albert K C Tsui, 2005. "Reverse Mortgages as Retirement Financing Instrument: An Option for “Asset-rich and Cash-poor” Singaporeans," SCAPE Policy Research Working Paper Series 0503, National University of Singapore, Department of Economics, SCAPE. [Downloadable!]
  5. Olivia S. Mitchell & Alexander Muermann, 2003. "The Demand for Guarantees in Social Security Personal Retirement Accounts," Working Papers wp060, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center. [Downloadable!]
  6. Olivia S. Mitchell & John Piggott & Michael Sherris & Shaun Yow, 2006. "Financial Innovation for an Aging World," NBER Working Papers 12444, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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