IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0938.html

Pension Funding Decisions, Interest Rate Assumptions and Share Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Feldstein
  • Randall Morck

Abstract

This paper explores how unfunded pension obligations affect the market values of firms. Finns appear to choose the interest rate they use in discounting future benefit obligations so as to balance the tax advantages of a low rate against the more healthy looking annual reports a high rate allows. Investors seem to penetrate this ruse and value firms as if obligations were figured at a standard rate. The rate thus used seems to be much lower than current long term interest rates. Pension liabilities are therefore overemphasized by the market. There is also some evidence that pension assets are undervalued. This suggests that growth of the private pension system might increase savings by investors and firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Feldstein & Randall Morck, 1982. "Pension Funding Decisions, Interest Rate Assumptions and Share Prices," NBER Working Papers 0938, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0938
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0938.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeremy I. Bulow, 1979. "Analysis of Pension Funding Under Erisa," NBER Working Papers 0402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Daniel E. Smith, 1983. "Introduction to "Pensions in the American Economy"," NBER Chapters, in: Pensions in the American Economy, pages 1-19, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Martin Feldstein, 1983. "Inflation and the Stock Market," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation, Tax Rules, and Capital Formation, pages 186-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Fischer Black, 1980. "The Tax Advantages of Pension Fund Investments in Bonds," NBER Working Papers 0533, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Feldstein, Martin & Green, Jerry, 1983. "Why Do Companies Pay Dividends?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 17-30, March.
    6. Irwin Tepper, 1981. "Taxation and Corporate Pension Policy," NBER Working Papers 0661, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Oldfield, George S, Jr, 1977. "Financial Aspects of the Private Pension System," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 48-54, February.
    8. Tepper, Irwin, 1981. "Taxation and Corporate Pension Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(1), pages 1-13, March.
    9. Lawrence H. Summers, 1982. "The Nonadjustment of Nominal Interest Rates: A Study of the Fisher Effect," NBER Working Papers 0836, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Feldstein, Martin S, 1978. "The Rate of Return, Taxation and Personal Savings," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 88(351), pages 482-487, September.
    11. Feldstein, Martin & Seligman, Stephanie, 1981. "Pension Funding, Share Prices, and National Savings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 801-824, September.
    12. Gersovitz, Mark, 1982. "Economic consequences of unfunded vested pension benefits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 171-186, November.
    13. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Daniel E. Smith, 1983. "Pensions in the American Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kotl83-1, January.
    14. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Horiba, Yutaka & Yoshida, Kazuo, 2002. "Determinants of Japanese corporate pension coverage," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 537-555.
    2. Feldstein, Martin & Seligman, Stephanie, 1981. "Pension Funding, Share Prices, and National Savings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 801-824, September.
    3. Pesando, James E, 1984. "Employee Evaluation of Pension Claims and the Impact of Indexing Initiatives," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(1), pages 1-17, January.
    4. Jeremy I. Bulow & Myron S. Scholes, 1983. "Who Owns the Assets in a Defined-Benefit Pension Plan?," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 17-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1983. "Pension Funding, Pension Asset Allocation, and Corporate Finance: Evidence from Individual Company Data," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 107-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Webb, David C., 2004. "Sponsoring company finance and investment and defined benefit pension scheme deficits," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24699, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Jeremy I. Bulow & Myron S. Scholes & Peter Menell, 1983. "Economic Implications of ERISA," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 37-56, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Li, C. Wei & Yao, Tong & Ying, Jie, 2024. "Investment policies and risk sharing by corporate pensions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    9. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1982. "Pension Funding, Pension Asset Allocation, and Corporate Finance: Evidence From Individual Company Data," NBER Working Papers 0957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jin, Li & Merton, Robert C. & Bodie, Zvi, 2006. "Do a firm's equity returns reflect the risk of its pension plan?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-26, July.
    11. Coronado, Julia & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Sharpe, Steven A. & Blake Nesbitt, S., 2008. "Footnotes aren't enough: the impact of pension accounting on stock values," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 257-276, November.
    12. Rauh, Joshua D. & Stefanescu, Irina & Zeldes, Stephen P., 2020. "Cost saving and the freezing of corporate pension plans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    13. Michael J. Alderson & Neil L. Seitz, 2013. "Pension Policy and the Value of Corporate-Level Investment," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 413-440, June.
    14. Móricz, Dániel, 2004. "Vállalati szolgáltatási nyugdíjprogramok optimális befektetési politikája és fedezettségi szintje az Egyesült Államokban [Optimal investment and funding policy of US defined-benefit pension plans]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1113-1131.
    15. Martin Feldstein, 1982. "Private Pensions as Corporate Debt," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Roles of Debt and Equity in Financing U.S. Capital Formation, pages 75-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Rumpf, Dominik, 2013. "Zinsbereinigung bei der Dualen Einkommensteuer," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 32, number urn:isbn:9783161528699, June.
    17. Julia Lynn Coronado & Steven A. Sharpe, 2003. "Did Pension Plan Accounting Contribute to a Stock Market Bubble?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 323-371.
    18. Edward P. Lazear, 1985. "Incentive Effects of Pensions," NBER Chapters, in: Pensions, Labor, and Individual Choice, pages 253-282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Joshua Rauh, 2007. "Risk Shifting versus Risk Management: Investment Policy in Corporate Pension Plans," NBER Working Papers 13240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Douglas K. Pearce & V. Vance Roley, 1987. "Firm Characteristics, Unanticipated Inflation, and Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 2366, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:nbr:nberwo:0938. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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 person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.