Are Employers more Generous Now?:An Analysis of Pension Generosity and Employers’ Characters

• Main Authors: Yang, Ling Yu, 楊凌玉
• Other Authors: Jennifer L. Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95318527989749771454

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 風險管理與保險學系 === 90 === Much debate has devoted in recent pension literature to discuss the impacts of current pension trend toward defined contribution(DC) plans, especially the substitution effect between 401(k) and other pension plans. However, the “generosity” of the employer pension plan deserves little attention. This paper analyzes the impacts of the effects of this trend on workers’ future retirement income by measuring the changes of employers’ pension generosity. We construct a panel data of firms that sponsor at least one pension plan in 1985 and compare the changes of their pension generosity for DB, DC and 401(k) plans between 1985 and 1996. OLS Regression Models are adopted to analyze the generosity of employers’ primary plan and supplemental plan and Chow test is conducted to test the structural changes between 1985 and 1996. Our results find that plan age and union status have positive impacts on employers’ generosity of DB and 401(k) plans. For financial variables, pretax income is an important consideration to employers’ generosity disregarding the type of plan. In addition, we find that there was a structure change of DB plans between 1985 and 1996 and that union status,plan age, financial etc. industry, proportion of fixed assets and pretax income have greater positive impacts on employers’ generosity of DB plans in 1996 than in 1985. For employees’ retirement income, the matching rates have grown over the last two decades and this stands for that employees covered by 401(k) plans have received better retirement benefit over the last two decades.