Chapter 21 pension risk and household saving over the life cycle

CHAPTER 21 Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle David A Love and Paul A Smith CONTENTS 21.1 I ntroduction 21.1.1 Sh ift from DB to DC 21.1.1.1 Decreasing Demand from Workers 21.1.1.2 Increasing Costs for Firms 21.1.1.3 Rec ent Developments 21.1.2 Freezes and Terminations 21.2 Pr evious Literature 21.3 M odel 21.3.1 Solving for Consumption 21.3.2 Solving for DC Contributions 21.4 Calibration and Parameterization 21.4.1 I ncome Process 21.4.2 Re tirement Income 21.4.3 Pr eferences 21.4.4 T ransition Probabilities 21.4.5 P ension Generosity 21.5 S imulation Results 21.5.1 Cash on Hand 21.5.2 Re tirement Wealth 21.5.3 E ffect of Pension Freezes 21.5.4 W elfare Measure 550 551 551 552 553 554 555 557 560 560 561 561 562 564 564 565 567 568 568 569 569 549 © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 550 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling 21.5.5 W elfare Results 21.5.5.1 Welfare Costs of a Realized Pension Freeze 21.5.5.2 Welfare Costs of a Higher Freeze Probability 21.6 F uture Extensions Acknowledgments References 570 570 72 575 77 77 D efi ned b enefit ( db) pension f reezes i n la rge h ealthy firms such as Verizon and IBM, as well as terminations of plans in the struggling steel and airline industries, highlight the fact that these traditional pensions cannot be viewed as risk-free from the employee’s perspective In this chapter, we develop an empirical dynamic programming framework to investigate household saving decisions in a simple life cycle model with DB pensions subject to the risk of being frozen The model incorporates important sources of uncertainty facing households, including asset returns, em ployment, wa ges, a nd m ortality, a s w ell a s pens ion f reezes Applying a compensating variation measure of household welfare, we find that pension freezes reduce welfare by about $6000 for individuals with a high school degree and about $2000 for individuals with a college degree We close by highlighting a few important issues to be addressed in future work, i ncluding a m ore realistic labor supply decision a nd t he effects of alternative market-clearing conditions in the labor market 21.1 INTRODUCTION The tr ansition fr om tr aditional d efined benefit ( DB) p lans t o defined contribution ( DC) p lans i mplies, a mong o ther t hings, a cha nge i n s aving incentives and risk exposure for households in the United States The popular media s generally se en t his t ransition a s one f rom a r isk-free pension world to one subject to greater uncertainty, but this obscures the fact that DBs are themselves prone to considerable uncertainty because of job changes, wage fluctuations, and recently, the rising incidence of pension plan freezes and terminations Freezes in large healthy firms such as Verizon and IBM, as well as terminations of plans in the struggling steel and airline industries, highlight the fact that these traditional pensions cannot be viewed as risk-free promises from the employee’s perspective Indeed, the current difficult economic outlook for many firms suggests that many more pension plans could be frozen or terminated soon In this chapter, we develop a s imple stochastic dynamic programming model to understand © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 551 how t he r ising r isks a ssociated w ith DB f reezes a nd ter minations m ight affect household saving decisions and expected lifetime utility 21.1.1 Shift from DB to DC Traditional D B p lans p rovide r etirees w ith a l ifetime a nnuity i n r etirement The amount of the annuity is typically a function of the number of years of a w orker’s ser vice w ith a firm a nd t he worker’s average or final pay For example, a typical formula might provide a retiree with an annuity equal to 1.5% of the final pay for each year of service.* Since both pay and years of service typically increase over time, this formula produces a steeply increasing accrual pattern in which the bulk of the final benefit is accrued i n t he years just before retirement For ex ample, a w orker w ith years of ser vice and “final pay” (e.g., average of t he highest y ears) of $25,000 would have accrued an annuity of ×$25,000 ×0.015 =$1,875 i n our model plan, while a w orker with 30 y ears of service and final pay of $100,000 would receive an annuity of 30 ×$100,000 ×0.015 =$45,000 That is, while the latter worker’s pay is four times higher than the former’s, his or her annuity is 24 times larger, due to the interaction of higher pay and more years of service 21.1.1.1 Decreasing Demand from Workers This “ back-loaded” ben efit acc rual pa ttern s t he effect o f r ewarding workers with long tenures, and a w ell-funded plan successfully provides a stable source of retirement income for long-tenure workers However, as shown b y o ur ex ample, w orkers w ith sh orter tenures e arn co nsiderably less f rom t he t raditional formula Traditional DBs a re not “portable,” in the sense that a worker who moves to a new job must start over in a new DB plan, resetting years of service to zero at each job change As a result, a worker who changes jobs several times in his or her career will not acquire the long tenure necessary to accrue a significant benefit, even if every new job provides the same DB plan Because of this feature, as the labor market has become more mobile and job changes more frequent, the value of traditional DB coverage has fallen In contrast, DC plans, which accrue savings in a t ax-preferred account, a re more portable across employers a nd provide a m ore linear accrual pattern, which make them relatively more valuable as job mobility increases * In practice, most “final pay” plans use an average of the highest or ye ars of pay In addition, most plans cap the replacement rates at 30 or 35 years of service © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 552 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling In t he United States, DC p lans became increasingly popular a fter the introduction of section 401(k) of the tax code, which provides for a deferral of income tax on wages allocated to a DC acco unt rather than taken as cash These plans became pa rticularly popular because most employers match workers’ 401(k) contributions During the late 1990s, the stock market soared and many employees (particularly younger workers) viewed 401(k) plans as an especially effective and convenient way to prepare for retirement 21.1.1.2 Increasing Costs for Firms At t he s ame t ime t hat i ncreasing j ob m obility a nd t he advent of 01(k) plans were reducing workers’ demand for traditional DB pensions, other forces were reducing employers’ willingness to provide them.* In 1985, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) released guidance requiring t he u se of a c ertain t ype of ac tuarial m ethod i n accounting for t he accrual o f pens ion ben efits The r equired m ethod, c alled t he p rojected unit c redit method, accounted for pension cost s a s t hey acc rued, r ather than spreading them evenly over each worker’s expected career Since DBs accrue rapidly at the end of a career, the switch to the new method reduced funding costs for younger workers and increased them for older workers FASB’s guidance really only applied to the accounting treatment of pension plans as reported in annual reports; firms were still free to use different assumptions in calculating their required contributions Nonetheless, many plans made conforming changes to their assumptions on the funding side This was significant, because it meant that as baby boomers aged, pension funding costs rose quickly As global competition increased, these higher costs became a significant drag on firms’ competitiveness In addition to the accounting changes, tax laws also changed in the 1980s Because employer contributions to DB funds and earnings thereon were tax-exempt, Congress added a “ full-funding limit” in 1987 to limit revenue losses, wh ich reduced companies’ i ncentive to contribute to t he plans After a series of high-profile corporate takeovers in which acquirers terminated overfunded plans in order to gain access to the excess assets, Congress also added a “reversion tax” of (eventually) 50% (in addition to ordinary corporate income tax) on the excess assets reclaimed from terminated p lans M oreover, t o l imit t he t ax ex penditure o n h igh-income * This discussion closely follows Munnell and Soto (2007) See that paper for a more d etailed exposition of the institutional history of DB plans © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 553 pension participants, Congress capped the amount of compensation that could be considered in funding pension benefits While the cap itself was indexed for inflation, firms were not permitted to take this indexation into account when funding future benefits All of these changes had the effect of reducing firms’ incentive to fund pension benefits 21.1.1.3 Recent Developments When the stock market bubble burst in 2000, pension funds were hit with what c ame t o be c alled “t he per fect st orm”: st ock losses reduced f unds’ assets significantly, while lower interest rates increased the present value of future pension payments As a result, the funding status of many pension plans (i.e., assets relative to liabilities) deteriorated dramatically The resulting funding gaps put unprecedented pressure on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the government corporation that insures private pension plans A number of large underfunded plans terminated in bankruptcy, resulting in record claims on the PBGC and lost benefits to workers a nd retirees (since PBGC payments a re capped) W hile f rom 1995 to 2000 net claims on the PBGC averaged $133 million per year, from 2001 to 2005 the average was over $4 billion per year From 2000 to 2004, the net position of the PBGC (assets less liabilities) plummeted from $10 billion to −$23 billion Partly in response to t he f unding crisis, Congress passed t he Pension Protection A ct o f 006, a ma jor r eform o f pens ion r ules t hat t ightened funding r equirements a nd m oved t he pens ion r egulatory s ystem a way from actuarial or smoothed values and toward market values About the same t ime, FASB a nnounced n ew g uidance r equiring f or t he first time that firms recognize the net position of the pension funds on their balance sheets.* FASB also began a l onger-term project to reform the accounting of pension accruals on corporate earnings statements This new guidance is widely expected to reduce the use of the smoothed values and require recognition of changes in the market value of the pension fund on earnings s tatements—potentially ma king e arnings s tatements m uch mo re volatile The combined effect of these recent developments, on top of the longer-term trends already at work, has been a significant acceleration of the retreat from DB plans among private sponsors * Previously, t he a ssets a nd l iabilities of t he p ension f und we re s eparately d isclosed i n footnotes © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 554 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling More recently, the ongoing financial crisis of 2008–2009, and difficult economic outlook for many firms—particularly those in DB-heavy industries such as auto makers and suppliers—seem likely to accelerate pension freezes W ith t he va lue o f pens ion a ssets ving decl ined a n e stimated 28% in 2008,* most plans are expected to report substantial underfunding in their forthcoming annual reports.† In this environment, an acceleration of pension freezes seems likely 21.1.2 Freezes and Terminations Firms are legally required to pay pension promises already accrued; however, they are free to modify, freeze, or terminate their plans going forward A modification could include, for example, a reduction in the accrual rate (e.g., f rom 1.5% per y ear t o 1% per y ear), a r eduction i n t he ma ximum years of service considered, etc A freeze can take several forms, but generally involves a cessation of new accruals A “ hard freeze” eliminates all future accruals, so a nnuities w ill not grow from t he level reached at t he time of the freeze A “soft freeze” typically eliminates new accruals based on years of service, but allows annuities to continue to rise based on rising earnings A “partial freeze” freezes benefits for some workers but not others A “closed plan” does not accept any new entrants but allows accruals for c urrent pa rticipants Terminations g enerally t ake o ne o f t wo f orms, but both involve ending the program and surrendering the pension fund In a standard termination, the firm liquidates the fund and uses the assets to buy annuities from an insurance company in order to provide the promised benefits to each worker Standard terminations generally require the pension to be fully funded In a “distress termination,” the firm turns the pension assets and liabilities over to the PBGC Distress terminations are used by underfunded plans in bankrupt firms, and generally require the approval of the bankruptcy judge As noted above, the dollar value of distress terminations has skyrocketed since 2000, causing a severe strain on the PBGC But freezes have also increased dramatically A partial list of well-known firms announcing hard freezes in the past few years includes Coca Cola, Delphi, FedEx, Fidelity, Goodyear, IBM, Michelin, NASDAQ, State St Corp., Suntrust Banks, and * See Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2009) † For example, in a pre liminary 2008 filing, General Motors has reported a 7-point decline in it s f unding r atio (assets re lative to l iabilities) f rom 007 to 008 (Bu rr, 009) Si milar declines in other funds would put the aggregate funding ratio at 70% or less, which would be very low by historical standards © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 555 TABLE 21.1 Hard-Frozen DB Plans 2003 2004 2005 9.5 2.5 12.1 3.5 14.1 6.1 1.4 1.9 4.1 Percent of Plans Percent of Participants Percent of Liabilities Source: P ension Benefit G uaranty C orporation, Hard-frozen defined benefit plans, 2008 Washington, DC Verizon Soft f reezes have be en less common, but i nclude D upont, GM, and H ershey A s sh own i n Table 21.1, a P BGC a nalysis o f rd f reezes found that by 2005, 14% of DB plans had instituted hard freezes, covering 6% of DB participants Note t hat t his t able u nderstates f reezes t o t he ex tent t hat it d oes n ot include soft freezes, partial freezes, or closed plans Moreover, many other firms a re co nsidering a f reeze: a r ecent Towers P errin su rvey o f sen ior finance executives found that 48% of companies would freeze defined benefit plans if those plans cut into buybacks, capital spending, or other priorities In 2006, 62% of companies reported considering freezing pension plans in the face of the changing legislative and accounting environment discussed above Virtually all firms announcing a freeze have simultaneously announced enhancements to D C b enefits, t ypically i n t he f orm o f m ore g enerous matching provisions Thus, depending on a w orker’s age a nd t he size of the enhancement relative to the DB generosity, some workers may be fully compensated or even better off after t he f reeze (typically younger workers), while others may be l ess t han f ully compensated (typically workers closer to retirement) This age profile in compensation changes is something that we will explore in more detail in our model of pension freezes and terminations 21.2 PREVIOUS LITERATURE Because the trend toward pension freezes is so recent, the literature studying t hem s o nly r ecently beg un A s m entioned abo ve, t he P ension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (2008) analyzed hard freezes from 2003 to 2005, finding that about 14% of plans were hard-frozen They also found that small plans were more likely to freeze than large plans and that frozen © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 556 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling plans were only about half as likely as nonfrozen plans to be fully funded By industry, manufacturing shows the highest freeze rate (about 18% by 2005), while financial firms show the lowest (about 9%) The Government Accountability Office (2008) performed a new survey of DB plans, finding significant incidence of freezing since 2005 They found that fully 21% of all active (i.e., non-retired) participants were affected by a freeze, and that half of sponsoring firms had a t least one f rozen plan About 4% of t he frozen plans were hard-frozen They found that the hard-freeze rate was significantly h igher a mong s mall firms, a nd t he f reeze r ate wa s s ignificantly lower among collectively bargained plans The Em ployee Be nefit Re search I nstitute ( 2006) u sed a s imulation model to analyze how freezes a ffect workers of different ages and salary levels They calculated the level of annual employer contribution rate to a DC p lan t hat w ould f ully co mpensate e ach w orker i n t heir d atabase They estimated a median rate of 8%, assuming 8% returns on future DC assets But t hey found a la rge deg ree of heterogeneity—even a co ntribution rate of 16% would leave a quarter of workers (mostly older) less than fully compensated Munnell and Soto (2007) provided a detailed historical context for the current wave of pension freezes, and then assembled a d atabase of pension p lans b y m erging d ata f rom t he Depa rtment o f L abor F orm 5500 reports (fi led annually by private pension plans) with firm-level data from Compustat They found that about 15% of plans were frozen, and that the likelihood of a freeze was higher among firms with lower funding levels, lower c redit r atings, a nd more re tired p articipants re lative to tot al p articipants (and t hus h igher pension cost s) Beaudoin et a l (2007) u sed a sample of S&P500 firms from Compustat to study the correlates of a pension freeze among a large number of firm-level financial statistics, finding that the best predictor seems to be the funding status of the plan Finally, Rubin (2007) st udied t he i mpact of pens ion f reezes o n firm v alue, a nd the market response to freeze announcements He found that freezes increase firm value but that markets lag in responding to the increase These pa pers ve p rovided t he first a nalysis o f pens ion f reezes a nd their e ffect o n w orkers O ur co ntribution i s t o ex amine t he effects of pension freezes in the context of a l ife-cycle model of saving, in order to understand the incentive effects of freezes on optimal saving behavior and household welfare As described in the following sections, our approach is to develop a stochastic dynamic programming model to understand how the r isks a ssociated w ith D B f reezes a nd ter minations a ffect household © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 557 saving and expected lifetime utility Our goal is to answer two basic questions about t he transition f rom DB to DC p lans First, for different ages and ten ures, wha t a re t he w elfare co nsequences o f a r ealized pens ion freeze—that i s, what would be t he required add itional compensation to make an employee indifferent toward a D B pension freeze? And second, what are the welfare consequences of an increase in the risk of a pension freeze, even among those who not experience one? 21.3 MODEL Our model economy builds on t he work of Schrager (2006) to a llow for pension freezes and terminations.* The key innovation in our framework is that we allow for the possibility that firms shut down their DB pension and replace it with a DC plan Since not all firms offer pensions and there is always the possibility of a job separation, we also consider job changes from firms with pensions to those without Individuals in our model start working at age 20, retire at age 65, and live to a ma ximum age of 100 During t he working years, t hey occupy one of three employment states They can be employed by a firm offering a traditional DB pension; they can be employed by a firm offering a DC pension; or they can be employed at a fi rm without a pension Under both types of pension plans, benefits are assumed to vest immediately.† The DC pens ion plan i s cha racterized by a n employer match r ate, µ, a l imit on employer matching contributions, ψ, and a st atutory limit on annual employee contributions, L.‡ Ordinarily, modeling DC plans requires one to keep track of an additional continuous state variable for accumulated s avings i n t he r etirement acco unt.§ The add itional st ate va riable would place se vere computational burdens on our modeling f ramework * Schrager (2006) i nvestigates t he i mpact of i ncreased jo b t urnover on t he at tractiveness (to employees) of DB pensions relative to DC plans To compare the expected utility benefits associated with each pension type, Schrager models two steady-state economies: one in which individuals have access only to DB plans and another in which individuals have access only to DC plans Because we are interested in the effects of freezes and terminations, we need to consider an economy in which both types of plans are offered Thus, one of the key distinctions in our modeling approach is to allow for transitions between firms offering DB and DC pensions † In practice, different vesting rules apply for 401(k) plans and DB pensions Modeling vesting durations greatly complicates the numerical solution to the problem since it requires keeping track of both vested and unvested benefits in DB and DC plans ‡ The mo dal 01(k) e mployer m atching a rrangement i s a 0% m atch up to % of e mployee salary (Costo, 2006) The legal limit on employee contributions in 2009 is $16,500 (with an additional $5,500 of “catch-up contributions” for employees aged 50 and older) § See, e.g., Engen et al (1994), Laibson et al (1998), and Love (2006) © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 558 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling since we allow individuals to have accumulated benefits in both DB and DC pens ion p lans We c an r educe t he d imension o f t he co mputational problem from three continuous state variables (conventional saving, DC savings, and DBs) to two by calculating the annuity value of DC accruals and adding them to accrued DBs We avoid the need to carry permanent income as a separate state variable by normalizing the other state variables with respect to permanent income We convert DC ba lances i nto a n ac tuarially fa ir a nnuity u sing a p rice that depends on the beneficiary’s age and gender We use a pretax interest rate bec ause DC s accrue t ax-free u nder c urrent law.* Thus, we define the [(φ]t Yt + µ min[φt , ψ]Yt ) , where the first term repannuity value of a DC as Qt resents the employee’s contribution rate times income, and the second term represents the employer’s match rate times the lesser of the employee’s contribution and the matching limit We divide by the annuity price Qt in order to convert the total DCs into an annuity that starts payments at age 65 We model the DB accrual using a standard formula linking benefits to years of ser vice at t he firm dt final per manent i ncome Pt,† a nd a ben efit accrual rate α We define the real value of the DB annuity as αdt Pt , (1 + π)65−t where π is the economy-wide inflation rate Most private DB plans are not adjusted for inflation, making the declining real value of pension accruals before retirement a n important cost o f pension freezes a nd terminations Nonetheless, for computational simplicity, we model DB payments in retirement as real annuities (i.e., fi xed in real terms).‡ Individuals in our model select a level of consumption Ct and (if they are employed at a firm offering a DC pension) a contribution rate φt, to maximize expected discounted lifetime utility The va lue f unction describing the individual’s problem is given by: * Note that the pretax interest rate is higher than the after-tax rate, and thus leads to a lo wer annuity price See Brown and Poterba (2000) for the present value formula for the price of an actuarially fair annuity † We make t he DB formula depend on final permanent income, rather just income, because DB formulas generally take an average of either the last few years of salary or the highest few years of salary If we made the DB formula depend on fi nal income, we would overstate the riskiness of DB benefits attributable to transitory fluctuations in earnings ‡ Given t he i nfrequency of C OLAs i n pr ivate p ension pl ans, it wou ld b e more a ccurate to model a nom inal p ension b enefit s tream i n re tirement a s well A ssuming a re al s tream of retirement income, however, greatly simplifies the solution of the model since we not need to keep track of separate variables for DB benefits, DC benefits, and Social Security; all pay a real stream of income in our model, and thus can be modeled as a combined single stream © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 564 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling and the ability to draw down a large portion of savings to finance a sudden medical expense shock.* 21.4.3 Preferences For p references, w e ad opt co nstant r elative r isk-aversion f unctions f or both utility and bequests, such that: u(Ct ) = ct1−ρ , 1− ρ (21.8) and B( Xt ) = b ⎛ Xt ⎞ ⎜ ⎟ 1− ρ ⎝ b ⎠ 1−ρ , (21.9) where b is a parameter determining the curvature of the marginal bequest function F or t he ba seline r esults r eported i n t he cha pter, w e a ssume a value of ρ =3 for the coefficient of relative risk aversion and set the bequest parameter to 21.4.4 Transition Probabilities In addition to income and preferences, we also need to choose values for the transition matrix governing movements between employment states— i.e., the probabilities of job separations and pension freezes Further, since one of the focuses of this chapter is on the transition from a l ow-freezeprobability en vironment t o a h igh-freeze-probability en vironment, w e specify a separate set of transition probabilities for each environment The Markov cha in w e spec ify f or t he t ransition p robabilities i s m eant t o be only a r ough approximation of t he employment r isks fac ed by a t ypical employee While it does not a llow separation probabilities to depend on * To test t he importance of me dical expense risk, we a lso solve t he model a llowing for b oth permanent a nd t ransitory fluctuations i n retirement i ncome due to out -of-pocket medical expenses We estimated the variance process for retirement income net of medical costs using data on i ncome and medical costs from the 1992–2006 waves of t he HRS The most salient change induced by the presence of income risk in retirement is a pronounced increased in the average level of cash on hand heading into retirement and a markedly more gradual rate of wealth drawdown that reflects a strengthened precautionary saving motive Since we can obtain t he s ame le vel of we alth accumulation by a djusting ot her parameters i n t he model such as risk aversion and the discount factor, we decided to keep our results focused on the more transparent (from a modeling perspective) case of constant retirement income © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 565 important characteristics such as age, job tenure, gender, or education, it does capture the key features of our modeling framework In each period, individuals in a DB firm face two risks: they may experience a pension freeze (with a replacement DC plan) or they may experience a t ransition to a “ bad” job that offers no pension at all.* We assume that workers in jobs with DC plans will never experience a pension “thaw”—a transition from a DC p lan to an unfrozen DB plan—but that they still face a probability of job separation.† In t he l ow-freeze-probability en vironment, w e spec ify t he f ollowing transition matrix: ⎛ 0.97 ⎜ Π i , j = ⎜ 0.01 ⎜ 0.10 ⎝ 0.00 0.96 0.25 0.03 ⎞ ⎟ 0.03 ⎟ 0.65 ⎟⎠ (21.10) where i, j ∈ {DC plan, DB plan, no plan} That is, a worker in a DB firm (second row) faces a 1% freeze probability (first column; i.e., DB to DC t ransition) and a 3% job loss probability (third column; i.e., DB to no-plan transition) In the high-freeze-probability environment, we assume the transition matrix is: ⎛ 0.97 ⎜ Π i , j = ⎜ 0.05 ⎜ 0.10 ⎝ 0.00 0.92 0.25 0.03 ⎞ ⎟ 0.03 ⎟ 0.65 ⎟⎠ (21.11) Thus, in this environment, workers in DB firms face a f reeze probability of 5% The low-freeze (1%) and high-freeze (5%) probabilities are roughly consistent with the pre-2001 and post-2001 incidences of DB freezes documented by the Government Accountability Office (2008) 21.4.5 Pension Generosity Empirically, most DB f reezes a re accompanied by en hancements to DC plans—typically more generous matching provisions We assume that firms offering DC pensions match contributions up to 6% of the salary In * This possibility, which involves a drop in compensation, is included to capture the idea that some workers may have firm-specific human capital at stake in the event of job loss † Th is is consistent with empirical evidence—e.g., see Government Accountability Office (2008) © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 566 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling our baseline simulation, we assume that DC firms offer the modal match in t he d ata of 50% ( Munnell a nd Sunden, 004) To c apture t he idea of enhanced DC generosity in the event of a pension freeze, we also calibrate a match that fully compensates workers in the aggregate—i.e., we choose the match rate that causes the firm to incur the same expected total annual pension costs as the prior DB plan.* To implement this, we assume a uniform age distribution of workers (normalized to one worker per age), and specify the annual pension costs under a DC plan in which workers contribute to the employer matching limit as: 64 cost DC = µψ ∑ Yt i = 20 (21.12) The annual costs under the DB plan are slightly more complicated Let Qt be the annuity price for an individual aged t, and let dt be his or her tenure The expected annual costs of the DB plan are then given by: 64 d P Q ⎤ ⎡ cost DB = α(1 + π)20 −65 P20Q20 + αE20 ∑ (1 + π)t −65 ⎢dt Pt Qt − t −1 t −1 t −1 ⎥ 1+ π ⎦ ⎣ i = 21 (21.13) An e asy way t o i nterpret t he a nnual DB cost s i n t he equation above i s to note that the first term is the cost of funding the accrued pension of a 20-year-old worker The second term i nside t he su mmation t hen represents t he i ncremental i ncrease i n pens ion cost s for o lder workers, consisting of a tenure component (the dt terms) and an income component.† As a ba seline assumption, we set the DB fraction a =0.015, which is t he most popular generosity factor per year of service in the National Benefits Survey (see Schrager (2006)) We solve for the match rate µ that equates the annual pension costs in Equations 21.12 and 21.13.‡ * Note that this does not ensure that each worker is fully compensated We will return to this crucial distinction below † Our e stimated i ncome pro fi les g ive u s t he e xpected v alues of p ermanent i ncome, E P 20 t Obtaining t he expected values of dt requires slightly more work Here we use 20,000 Monte Carlo simulations of our employment transition matrix to find the average tenures at each age t As in our model simulations, we initialize the process assuming that 25% of the population have a DB plan, 25% have a DC plan, and 50% are employed in a firm that does not offer a pension ‡ Note that taxes not enter the annual cost calculations Since both employer contributions to DC and DB plans receive the same tax advantage under the tax code, we can cancel the tax terms in each equation © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 567 21.5 SIMULATION RESULTS With our approximated decision rules in hand, we simulate 20,000 independent life histories that vary by employment and wage realizations We initialize our model economy by assuming that 50% of workers start out in a nonpension firm, 25% start out in a firm offering a DC pens ion, and 25% start out in a firm offering a D B pension A ll individuals begin t he working life with the same trend income but experience different realizations of shocks to transitory and permanent income The s imulations a llow u s t o de scribe t he o ptimal s aving dec isions and welfare implications for the “typical” household in terms of savings, employment, and pension benefits We begin our analysis of the simulation results by taking a brief look at the average life-cycle paths implied by our model parameterization For the baseline specification (DC matching rate of 50% up to 6% of the salary and a DB generosity factor of 1.5%), Figure 21.1 displays t he average simulated profi les of consumption, cash High school 120 160 Thousands of dollars Thousands of dollars 100 80 60 40 140 120 100 20 20 College 180 80 60 40 20 40 60 Ages 80 100 Consumption Cash on hand 20 40 60 Ages 80 100 Income Annuity Simulated c onsumption, c ash o n nd, p ermanent i ncome, a nd retirement a nnuity The figure shows t he average simulated levels of consumption Ct, cash on hand Xt, permanent income Pt, and the retirement annuity At for high school graduates (left panel) and college graduates (right panel) The averages are taken over 20,000 independent life histories of income and employment shocks The baseline model is solved for a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 3, a bequest parameter of 0, a pretax interest rate of 5.5%, a discount factor 1/1.055, a DB generosity factor of 1.5%, and a DC plan employer matching rate of 50% up to 6% of income Note that in retirement, permanent income includes the value of the retirement annuity FIGURE 21.1 © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 568 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling on nd, i ncome, a nd t he retirement a nnuity for both h igh school a nd college graduates 21.5.1 Cash on Hand The t rajectory o f c ash o n nd f ollows t he co nventional acc umulation pattern, hewing closely to i ncome during t he e arly working years when households are likely to be credit-constrained and then rising rapidly to a peak at retirement College graduates, who have steeper and more humpshaped income profi les, appear to be credit-constrained for much longer than high school graduates—a result that has been found in previous life-cycle studies (see, e.g., Zeldes, 1989; Hubbard et al., 1995).* 21.5.2 Retirement Wealth Another i nteresting f eature i s t he r elationship be tween i ncome a nd t he retirement annuity At the beginning of the working years, the average level of the retirement annuity barely rises above zero, reflecting both the low levels of employee DCs at these ages (despite the generous matching provisions, t he credit constraints c ause younger households to defer ma king contributions until income rises above a t hreshold amount) as well as the structure of the DB formula, which implies a slow growth in pension benefits when years of service are low Although the retirement annuity accumulates during the working years, it does not generate income until retirement Thus, the average income profiles from age 20 to 64 are essentially the same as t he e stimated i ncome profiles f rom t he PSID At retirement, however, permanent income includes both the retirement annuity as well as the Social Security replacement rate On net, the average simulations show that the total replacement rate of income in retirement is close to 100%.† * The simulated levels of cash on hand for the two education groups are lower than the wealth holdings in the PSID According to the 1999–2005 wealth supplements in the PSID, median cash on h and (defined a s ne t we alth plus c urrent i ncome) for m arried h igh s chool g raduates is around $300,000 for married couples and around $200,000 for single males (in 2006 CPI-U-adjusted dollars) For c ollege graduates, the median level of c ash on h and is around $550,000 for married couples and $300,000 for single males The simulations in Figure 21.1 show roughly half as much cash on hand It is not surprising, however, that our model understates wealth accumulation since we assume that all DC savings are annuitized † Th is might seem to be an optimistic view of retirement savings relative to what we observe in t he d ata Munnell a nd S oto (2005), for i nstance, e stimate me dian re placement r ates i n the H RS of a bout 79 % for m arried c ouples a nd a bout 89 % for si ngle-headed hou seholds Once we account for the fact that we are annuitizing 100% of DC contributions, however, the higher replacement rates seem less out of line with their empirical counterparts © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 569 21.5.3 Effect of Pension Freezes A key question about the transition from DB to DC plans is how the welfare consequences of t he t ransition a re borne by employees of d ifferent ages In a cla ssical labor market w ith neither firm-specific human capital n or se arch f rictions, t otal co mpensation (wages p lus ben efits) must deliver t he same reservation utility va lue, regardless of t he st ructure of compensation In that world, pension freezes and terminations would be wholly irrelevant except to the extent that they signaled a change in the market-clearing l evel of compensation I n our m odel, we a re i mplicitly assuming t hat so me co mbination o f se arch f rictions a nd firm-specific human capital provides firms with the ability to change total compensation without losing workers Higher probabilities of pension freezes may be v iewed as good or bad news from the standpoint of the representative employees in our model Younger workers, for instance, have more to gain from a shift from a DB to DC plan than older workers Not only they have more years to contribute to the plan, but their lower average years of service also mean that they have less at stake in terms of foregone DBs Thus, we analyze the welfare consequences of a pension freeze by age We target our simulation exercises to answer two basic questions about the transition from DB to DC plans First, for different ages and tenures, what a re t he welfare consequences of a r ealized pension f reeze—that is, what would be the required additional compensation to make an employee indifferent toward a DB pension freeze? And second, what are the welfare consequences of an increase in the risk of a pens ion freeze, even among those who not experience one? 21.5.4 Welfare Measure Our measure of the change in welfare is a compensating variation notion low high (xt , at , dt ) and vˆDB Let vˆDB (xt , at , dt ) be the interpolated value functions for individuals in a firm with a DB pension under either a low-freeze probability o r a h igh-freeze-probability en vironment W e c an so lve f or t he change in cash on hand (normalized by permanent income), ∆ttrans , such that the individual is indifferent between the two environments That is, high low vˆDB (xt , at , dt ) = vˆDB (xt + ∆ttrans , at , dt ) © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC (21.14) 570 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling Using a r oot-finder to solve for ∆ttrans for each simulated individual with a DB plan, we can then compute the average welfare compensating variation, ∆ttrans , for each age during the working portion of the life cycle The interpretation of ∆ttrans is that it represents the average amount of additional wealth individuals aged t would need to receive to compensate them for a shift in the transition probabilities We c an a pply a s imilar tech nique t o co mpute t he co mpensating variations for realized pension freezes occurring in either a h igh- or a low-freeze-probability environment For example, the welfare measure for a f reeze i n a l ow-probability en vironment, ∆tlow , w ould be g iven implicitly by: low low low vˆDB (xt , at , dt ) = vˆDC (xt + ∆ t , at , dt ) (21.15) We can again average over individuals with a DB plan for each age t and calculate t he a verage co mpensation ∆tlow F ollowing t he s ame st rategy, we can compute ∆ thigh for individuals in a h igh-probability environment high trans low Together, the values of ∆t , ∆t , and ∆ t tell us how the typical simulated DB pa rticipant would fa re u nder either a cha nge i n t he economywide p robability o f f reezes o r, m ore d irectly, u nder a n ac tual pens ion freeze that replaces a DB plan with a DC plan 21.5.5 Welfare Results 21.5.5.1 Welfare Costs of a Realized Pension Freeze Figure 21.2 shows how the compensating variations for a realized pension freeze change with the age of the employee The left age profile shows the welfare measure for high school graduates, and the right age profile shows the results for college graduates Since the welfare costs of a freeze depend on the expectations of such an event (i.e., the freeze probabilities), we plot two d ifferent profiles f or e ach ed ucation g roup: o ne t hat r epresents t he welfare cost s o f a sudden f reeze for e ach a ge u nder a l ow-freeze-probability environment (probability =1%) and one that represents the welfare costs under a high-freeze-probability environment (probability =5%) The age profile for high school graduates indicates that the welfare costs of a freeze follows a hump-shaped path over the working portion of the life cycle, w ith a pe ak at a round $6000 for t he low-probability environment and a round $5000 for t he high-probability environment Intuitively, t he more likely a freeze is, the less costly the realization of the event (i.e., it is less of a surprise) The hump-shaped pattern primarily reflects the accrual © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 571 High school Thousands of dollars Thousands of dollars 20 30 40 50 College 2.5 60 Ages 70 Low freeze prob High freeze prob 1.5 0.5 20 30 40 50 60 70 Ages FIGURE 21.2 Simulated welfare costs of a p ension freeze The figure shows the average si mulated w elfare c osts (the c ompensating e quivalent v alues, i n t housands) of experiencing a pension freeze at different ages during the working life The left pa nel shows t he welfare c osts for h igh s chool g raduates, a nd t he r ight panel shows the welfare costs for college graduates The “low-freeze-probability” lines represent the average welfare costs of pension freezes in an economy with a freeze probability of 1% The “high-freeze-probability” lines represent the average welfare costs of freezes in an economy with a f reeze probability of 5% The averages are taken over individuals of each age, conditional on being employed by a firm offering a DB pension The baseline model is solved for a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 3, a bequest parameter 0, a pretax interest rate of 5.5%, a discount factor 1/1.055, a DB generosity factor of 1.5%, and a DC plan employer matching rate of 50% up to 6% of income formula of the DB plan Early in the life cycle, average years of service are low, and less DBs are at stake in the event of a freeze Later, as average tenures lengthen and incomes rise (both of which generate increases in DBs), the welfare costs of shifting to a DC plan become more severe After a certain point, around age 55, incomes taper off, leaving less DBs on the table in the event of a freeze Welfare costs therefore tend to decline in the last 10 years or so before retirement Note that the welfare costs of a freeze are always positive for both high school and college graduates We generate this result with the baseline model because a DC plan with a 50% match is strictly dominated by a DB plan with a 1.5% generosity factor College graduates have a slightly different pattern of welfare costs from pension freezes Just as with high school graduates, average welfare costs reach a maximum near age 55, but they not rise monotonically throughout t he working life Instead, t here is an initial increase to about age 35, © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 572 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling then a sl ight d rop, a nd t hen a n acc eleration at a ge-55 pe ak This occurs because early in the life cycle, when households are credit-constrained and the marginal utility of consumption is high, DB accruals are low relative to what optimal DC s aving would be I n other words, young households benefit from the back-loaded nature of DB plans in that they allow young workers to consume more when their marginal utility of consumption is relatively high Thus, college graduates, who are severely credit-constrained for the first decade of the working life, find freezes particularly costly since they force the worker to switch to a DC plan and thus reduce consumption further i n order to acc umulate su fficient re tirement re sources A fter age 35 or so, college graduates are no longer credit-constrained, and the DC plan becomes an increasingly attractive vehicle for retirement saving For a while, these benefits lead to a reduction in the welfare costs associated with a freeze until, eventually, the service and income parts of the DB formula again make DCs increasingly costly to the worker Note t hat e ven t hough co llege g raduates ve h igher a verage e arnings than high school graduates, they show a l ower average welfare cost— in absolute ter ms The ex planation f or t his r esides i n t he l ower S ocial Security replacement rates experience by college graduates relative to high school graduates College graduates save more because they expect a much sharper decline in income in retirement and thus have a stronger incentive to build up wealth either through both conventional saving and DCs Thus, college g raduates who ex perience a f reeze can add t o t heir saving by substituting from conventional saving to DCs High school graduates, in contrast, may have to significantly reduce t heir consumption t o t ake advantage of the more generous matching contributions after t he freeze; as a result, a freeze is more costly in utility terms.* 21.5.5.2 Welfare Costs of a Higher Freeze Probability The r apid acc eleration o f pens ion f reezes a nd ter minations o ver t he pa st decade raises the question of how costly this transition in the freeze probabilities s be en f or t he t ypical em ployee w ith a D B p lan That i s, e ven without experiencing a freeze directly, an employee might still experience a significant decrease in welfare because of the decrease in the expected value of pension benefits Figure 21.3 examines the welfare consequences of a shift * The issue of asset substitution is central to the debate on whether 401(k) plans actually create new national saving For a discussion of the importance of asset substitution in DC plans, see Engen et al (1996) © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 573 High school 1.6 0.35 Thousands of dollars Thousands of dollars 1.4 1.2 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 20 College 0.4 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 30 40 50 Ages 60 70 20 30 40 50 Ages 60 70 Simulated welfare costs of an increase in the probability of a pension freeze The figure shows the average simulated welfare costs (the compensating e quivalent v alues, i n t housands) of a sudden i ncrease i n t he probability of pension freezes (from a 1% risk to a 5% risk) for different ages during the working life The left panel shows the welfare costs for high school graduates, and the right panel shows the welfare costs for college graduates The averages are taken over individuals of each age, conditional on being employed by a firm offering a DB pension The baseline model is solved for a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 3, a bequest parameter of 0, a pretax interest rate of 5.5%, a discount factor 1/1.055, a DB generosity factor of 1.5%, and a DC plan employer matching rate of 50% up to 6% of income FIGURE 21.3 in the probability of a f reeze from 1%, which corresponds to the pre-2000s environment, to a probability of 5%, which is in line with the probabilities implied by the spate of pension freezes in the early 2000s The shapes of the profiles for high school and college graduates look quite similar to the profiles in Figure 21.2, with welfare costs between a fifth and a quarter as large As a final set of welfare experiments, we also investigate the effects of pension freezes when firms compensate workers with DC plans that cost the same expected amount in the aggregate Figure 21.4 displays the simulated profiles of welfare costs of pension freezes for high school and college graduates when the frozen DB plan is replaced by an enhanced DC plan In contrast to the previous experiment, in which the DC matching rate was 50%, the higher implied matching rate in the enhanced DC plan makes the DC plan the preferred savings vehicle for younger high school graduates and for almost all ages for college graduates The pattern by age, though, is similar The DC plan is most attractive at the point where households would like to build up wealth for retirement © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 574 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling High school Low freeze prob High freeze prob 0.5 –0.5 –1 –2 –4 –6 –8 –10 –1.5 –2 20 Thousands of dollars Thousands of dollars 1.5 College 30 40 50 Ages 60 70 –12 20 30 40 50 60 70 Ages Simulated w elfare c osts o f a p ension f reeze ( with ma tch s et to equalize pension costs) The figure shows the average simulated welfare costs (the compensating equivalent values, in thousands) of experiencing a pension freeze at d ifferent ages during t he working life The left panel shows t he welfare costs for high school graduates, and the right panel shows the welfare costs for college graduates The “low-freeze-probability” lines represent the average welfare costs of p ension f reezes i n a n e conomy w ith a f reeze p robability o f 1% The “highfreeze-probability” lines represent the average welfare costs of freezes in an economy with a f reeze probability of 5% The averages are taken over individuals of each a ge, conditional on being employed by a firm offering a D B pension The baseline model is solved for a c oefficient of relative risk aversion of 3, a bequest parameter of 0, a p retax interest rate of 5.5%, a d iscount factor of 1/1.055, a DB generosity factor of 1.5%, and a DC plan employer matching rate of 112% for high school graduates and 136% for college graduates up to 6% of income FIGURE 21.4 and relatively less at older ages, when the DB formula implies large gains due to tenure and wage growth Younger college graduates gain as much as $12,000 i n co mpensating va riation ter ms f rom pens ion f reezes w ith the higher matching rate (over 100%), while high school graduates show a much smaller change Again, the difference has to with the difference in the saving incentives implied by the age profiles of earnings and the Social Security r eplacement r ates C ollege g raduates ve a st ronger i ncentive to save in order to supplement pension and Social Security income and therefore benefit disproportionately from the shift to the DC plan Figure 21.5, which is analogous to Figure 21.3, shows the welfare consequences of a sh ift in the probability of a f reeze from 1% to 5% Again, the shapes of the profiles for high school and college graduates are quite similar to the profiles in Figure 21.3, but with significantly smaller welfare costs © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 575 High school 0.3 –0.5 Thousands of dollars Thousands of dollars 0.2 0.1 –0.1 –0.2 –0.3 –0.4 20 College –1 –1.5 –2 –2.5 –3 30 40 50 Ages 60 70 –3.5 20 30 40 50 Ages 60 70 Simulated welfare costs of an increase in the probability of a pension freeze (with match set to equalize pension costs) The figure shows the average simulated welfare costs (the compensating equivalent values, in thousands) of a sudden increase in the probability of pension freezes (from a 1% risk to a 5% risk) for different ages during the working life The left panel shows the welfare costs for high school graduates, and the right panel shows the welfare costs for college g raduates The a verages a re t aken o ver i ndividuals o f e ach a ge, c onditional on being employed by a firm offering a DB pension The baseline model is solved for a c oefficient of relative risk aversion of 3, a b equest parameter of 0, a pretax interest rate of 5.5%, a discount factor 1/1.055, a DB generosity factor of 1.5%, and a DC plan employer matching rate of 112% for high school graduates and 136% for college graduates up to 6% of income FIGURE 21.5 21.6 FUTURE EXTENSIONS In this chapter, we take a quantitative look at the welfare consequences of the recent increase in DB pension freezes and terminations The welfare consequences a re computed f rom s imulations of a l ife-cycle m odel t hat allows f or em ployment t ransitions a mong firms offering D B p lans, DC plans, or no pension plan at all The ba seline s imulations i ndicate t hat the cost s of pens ion f reezes a re relatively modest when t he DB pens ion is replaced by a DC p lan with a match rate of 50% or more High school graduates, for instance, would require an average of at most about $6000 in additional cash on hand to compensate them for a pension freeze College graduates would require only about a third as much In addition, when we set t he DC em ployer matching rate in such a wa y t hat t he firm’s annual pension costs remain roughly the same, we find that younger high school graduates and college graduates of all ages would actually benefit from a pension freeze © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC 576 ◾ Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling However, the life-cycle model we develop in this chapter is highly stylized I n cha racterizing t he welfare consequences of pension f reezes a nd terminations, we have made a n umber of modeling decisions t hat could limit t he r ealism o f o ur s imulations S ome o f t hese s implifications are unlikely to have a large effect on the results, but others are likely to have a first-order impact The two most important extensions, in our view, would be the addition of a labor supply decision and a more careful treatment of market-clearing compensation Labor supply matters in a couple of respects First, because the DB pension formula is linked to years of service, employees who may have experienced shocks to income during the working years have an incentive to stay with the firm to acc umulate add itional s avings a nd benefits O f course, firms are aware of this incentive and generally structure their benefit formulas t o en courage n ormal-age r etirement B ut e ven st ill, labo r su pply constitutes a n essential ma rgin of adjustment t hat c an l imit t he welfare consequences of events such as pension freezes and terminations In terms of the labor market, a more fundamental issue is that our current f ramework d oes n ot acco unt f or ma rket-clearing co mpensation i n the labor market As Bulow (1982) pointed out in the context of measuring pension liabilities, equilibrium salary and pension benefits should be consistent with the instantaneous marginal product of labor in each year of a n em ployee’s ser vice a t t he firm I f t he va lue o f co mpensation w ere to fall below the market-clearing condition, the employee would leave for another firm If the value of compensation were too high, the firm would be overpaying relative to the market and thus run negative economic profits I n o ur m odel, t his st rict co mpetitive labo r ma rket co ndition w ould imply that employees would face, in expectation, zero change in the utility value of compensation when a firm freezes its pension, because they must receive the reservation level of utility from compensation In contrast to the competitive labor market condition, Ippolito (1985a,b) has argued t hat DB pensions represent a n implicit contract between t he firm a nd t he employee, w ith firms underpaying relative to t he marginal product i n e arly y ears a nd o verpaying r elative t o t he ma rginal p roduct in later years This assumption would allow for an effect from a pens ion freeze i n our model; however, it raises t he question why t he firm would suddenly decide to restructure the age pattern of compensation by freezing its pension Might it reflect an age bias (presumably toward the young) in the distribution of skill-based technical change? If so, then the real story is less about pension freezes and more about the nature of this change in the © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 577 age composition of productivity shocks A lternatively, t he age t ilt in t he compensation pattern of DBs may reflect a bargaining agreement between unions and managers But if this is the case, then the locus of the issue is again not so much the pension freeze per se, but instead the weakening of union bargaining power at the expense of older workers Finally, because pension freezes are a relatively recent phenomenon, it is difficult to know whether we are right in modeling the transition as movement from one low-probability steady state to another, higher-probability steady state If t he f reezes a re ac tually symptoms of t he broader decl ine and possible extinction of DB plans, then the expected probabilities may indeed be increasing over time ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This r esearch wa s co nducted w ith t he su pport o f t he S teven H S andell Grant, spo nsored b y t he C enter f or Re tirement Re search a t B oston College W e t hank Ma rgaret L ay f or ex cellent r esearch a ssistance The views ex pressed h erein a re t hose o f t he a uthors a nd d o n ot n ecessarily reflect those of the Board of Governors or the staff of the Federal Reserve System REFERENCES Beaudoin, C, N Cha ndar, and E M W erner, An em pirical investigation of t he defined benefit pension freeze decision, 2007 Working Paper Benitez-Silva, H., The annuity puzzle revisited, June 2003 M ichigan Retirement Research Center Working Paper WP2005-055 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, 2009 Brown, J R and J M Poterba, Joint life annuities and annuity demand by married couples, The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2000, 67(4), 527–553 Bulow, J., What are corporate pension liabilities? 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August 2005 C enter f or Retir ement Res earch WP 2005–10 Munnell, A H a nd M S oto, Why are companies freezing their pensions? 2007 Center for Retirement Research Paper 2007–22 Palumbo, M G., U ncertain medical exp enses and precautionary saving near the end of the life cycle, Review of Economic Studies, Apr 1999, 66(2), 395–421 Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Hard frozen defined benefit plans, 2008 Washington, DC Rubin, J., The impact of pension freezes on firm value, 2007 Working Paper Schrager, A., A lif e-cycle analysis of the decline of defined benefit plans and job tenure, 2006 Working Paper Zeldes, S P , Op timal co nsumption wi th st ochastic inco me: D eviations f rom certainty eq uivalence, The Qua rterly J ournal o f Ec onomics, 1989, 104(2), 275–298 © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC ... understand how the r isks a ssociated w ith D B f reezes a nd ter minations a ffect household © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 557 saving. .. story is less about pension freezes and more about the nature of this change in the © 2010 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 577 age composition... Taylor and Francis Group, LLC Pension Risk and Household Saving over the Life Cycle ◾ 567 21. 5 SIMULATION RESULTS With our approximated decision rules in hand, we simulate 20,000 independent life