IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ntj/journl/v60y2007i3p507-19.html

Why Do Firms Offer Risky Defined–Benefit Pension Plans?

Author

Listed:
  • Love, David
  • Smith, Paul A.
  • Wilcox, David

Abstract

Even risky pension sponsors could offer essentially riskless pension promises by contributing a sufficient level of resources to their pension trust funds and by investing those resources in fixed–income securities designed to deliver their payoffs just as pension obligations are coming due. However, almost no firm has chosen to fund its plan in this manner. We study the optimal funding choice for plan sponsors by developing a simple model of pension financing in which the total compensation offered to workers must clear the labor market. We find that if workers understand the implications of pension risk, they will demand greater compensation for riskier pension promises than for safer ones, all else equal. Indeed, in our model, pension sponsors maximize their value by making their pension promises free of risk. We close by positing some explanations for why no real–world firm follows the prescription of our model.

Suggested Citation

  • Love, David & Smith, Paul A. & Wilcox, David, 2007. "Why Do Firms Offer Risky Defined–Benefit Pension Plans?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(3), pages 507-519, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:60:y:2007:i:3:p:507-19
    DOI: 10.17310/ntj.2007.3.10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2007.3.10
    Download Restriction: Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2007.3.10
    Download Restriction: Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17310/ntj.2007.3.10?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christine Mayrhuber & Gerhard Rünstler & Thomas Url & Werner Eichhorst & Michael J. Kendzia & Maarten Gerard & Connie Nielsen, 2011. "Pension Systems in the EU. Contingent Liabilities and Assets in the Public and Private Sector," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 43938, August.
    2. Thomas Url, 2015. "Altersvorsorgesysteme in Europa," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 57913, August.
    3. Margaret J. Lay, 2020. "Pension Regulation, Firm Borrowing, and Investment Risk," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 87(4), pages 935-968, December.
    4. Love, David A. & Smith, Paul A. & Wilcox, David W., 2011. "The effect of regulation on optimal corporate pension risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 18-35, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:60:y:2007:i:3:p:507-19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: The University of Chicago Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ntanet.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.