Participant Investment Behavior and Investment Performance in Defined Contribution Plans: Evidence from Small Firms in South Korea

U . S . Workers ' Investment Decisions for Participant - Directed Defined Contribution

Two issues may have a tremendous impact on the adequacy of retirement income for American workers. The first is the growth of 401(k) pension plans, which allow participants to contribute, before taxes, a portion of their salary to a qualified retirement account.1 By 1998, the most recent year that published information is available, 401(k) plans accounted for about 41 percent of all pension pla...

Investment strategy design for defined contribution pension plans

As a consequence, individuals‟ retirement planning requirements have become significantly more complex. In an ideal world, members of DC schemes would have access to individual investment advice to allow them to construct a plan to help manage these risks. In practice it has not yet been possible to supply full, individually tailored advice to all DC members on an affordable basis. Instead what...

Small Firms’ Investment:

Optimal Funding and Investment Strategies in Defined Contribution Pension Plans under Epstein-Zin Utility

A defined contribution pension plan allows consumption to be redistributed from the plan member’s working life to retirement in a manner that is consistent with the member’s personal preferences. The plan’s optimal funding and investment strategies therefore depend on the desired pattern of consumption over the lifetime of the member. We investigate these strategies under the assumption that th...

Credit Rating Inflation and Firms’ Investment Behavior

Why do potentially inflated credit ratings affect rational, well-informed creditors’ bond investment decisions? What are credit ratings’ effects on firms’ behavior? We resolve these questions by modeling a credit rating agency (CRA) as a certified expert who transmits information to creditors with coordination incentives and dispersed beliefs. In the unique equilibrium, high credit ratings are ...